A strange error with System Restore at T-13.

[har-vas]

Hi. After many weeks of reading the guide (intermediate) and testing over 10 installations, I am in a satisfactory point in the road of making a full unattended setup DVD for Windows XP. But now I have some strange problems and I decided to ask for help. First of all, my installation stops at T-13 minute (svcpack.inf) and pops-up the known System Restore warning ("System Restore is turned off..."). The strange is that in that point I am NOT installing the Windows Media Player 10! This error message was always there from the first time, when I was actually trying to install the WMP10 from the silent package the unattended.msfn.org guide was giving. Due to this error message and because my unattended installation was being stopped, I decided to put WMP10 off and try to install it later (first logon) as a preinstalled software (with the help of AI Snapshot). This is what I do now. So my question is: Why this annoying warning message, which is relative to the WMP10 installation, is still there? Is there any reference to my svcpack.inf file? Here is my svcpack.inf:

[Version]

BuildNumber=2600

MinorVersion=1

MajorVersion=5

Signature="$WINDOWS NT$"

[setupData]

CatalogSubDir="\I386\svcpack"

[ProductCatalogsToInstall]

KB896344.cat

KB908519.cat

KB910437.cat

KB912919.cat

KB891122.cat

KB900930.cat

[setupHotfixesToRun]

kb891122.exe /q /n /z /o

KB890830.exe /q

KB873374.exe

KB896344.exe /q /n /z

KB908519.exe /q /n /z /b:SP2GDR

KB910437.exe /q /n /z /b:SP2GDR

KB912919.exe /q /n /z /b:SP2GDR

KB905915.exe /q /n /z /o

KB890046.exe /q /n /z /o

qchain.exe

[CatalogHeader]

Is there any switch to suppress it if I decide in the future to return to the silent install package at T-13?

My second problem is with two shortcuts: One I can't delete it and one I can't copy it! Note that when I am copying the corresponding commands to the command prompt and execute them, they both do work smoothly! Also, all the other copy and delete commands which are relative to shortcuts work. The problem is only with those two commands when running from the script at the first logon (of course after the installations). Here is the code from my script:

copy "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\Harris\Start Menu\Programs\Outlook Express.lnk" "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\Harris\Desktop"

del "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\Alcohol 120%.lnk"

Please help me if you can. I don't see any errors in my code, but I am not very skilled scripter. Thanks.

[benners]

copy "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\Harris\Start Menu\Programs\Outlook Express.lnk" "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\Harris\Desktop"

del "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\Alcohol 120%.lnk"

Unsure why the error is popping up, always associated it with WMP, perhaps one of the hotfixes is WMP related. I always use RyanVMs update and addon packs and have no problems.

As for the shortcuts, the Outlook express code seems ok and works when I create an Outlook Express.lnk in my programs dir and change Harris to Benners, is the lnk in the users dir or allusers? you could always type it into a dos window after install and see what error message is displayed, try this for the alcohol, an extra % is needed

del "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\Alcohol 120%%.lnk"

[har-vas]

Hi Benners and thank you for your answer. Sorry for the delay, but I don't like to re-ask again and again without any real try first. Here is my feedback:

Yes, one of the updates (the first) is Media Player-related so this was the cause of the warning. I tried to find a switch to suppress it but nothing was working! I also tried to suppress it by making a new package with iexpress but no result. I think that the only way is to change (with an editor) the appropriate file in the package but I don't know which. A guy in this forum I think, had written a step-by-step guide about how to disable the appearance of the result window of the installation of the GDI tool. It was decompressing the package, changing some switches in a file and then repackaging it with iexpress. I read it and I managed to solve my problem then (also at T-13). But I couldn't find it now to try something similar so I decided to solve my problem with another way: I put the kb891122.exe out of svcpack.inf and now I am installing it from the GuiRunOnce at first logon (when the System Restore is actually enabled). I am using the /passive switch and that's all. Of course, before this I am installing the WMP10 from the silent package (no /DisallowSystemRestore switch or any other needed because the SR is on). And in the end of the script, I merge a tweak to disable SR. It works fine. In the same way, I will install two other security updates for WMP to be sure that no id*** messages will come up. I hope them to work also.

As for the shortcuts, thank you for your help with Alcohol. Yes, this was the solution: a double %. For the Outlook Express (which is only in user's folder, not All Users), I am getting this error during the script: "The system cannot find the file specified". I don't know why; maybe this shortcut is created after the load of the shell and not when my script is running, so there is nothing to copy. Of course, when I run it from cmd all is fine. So I decided to change my way and create this shortcut just as I create all the other shortcuts in my batch file: with the help of the excellent XXMLINK command-line tool. That's all. Hope to be understandable.

[benners]

Hi har-vas

glad to see you got things sorted, I use Ryan VMs addons for WMP and these can be integrated into the windows installation files so do not need to be installed as seperate hotfixes. If you want to try it here is a link.

[har-vas]

Hi again. Thanks for the link, Benners. To tell the truth, I was impressed by the material I found in Ryan VM's website (I had skipped the relative reference when reading the guide and continued with the "official" ways of integration). I think that I was bedeviling myself, by manual installing all these hotfixes. I learned many things although... The result of course is OK, because now I have ALL the hotfixes installed (both critical and optional), but I think that the Ryan's method is easier and more efficient. I will try it at my next format. Generally, I understood that there are many different ways to achieve something in an unattended setup. Of course, I will read before trying the Ryan's method but now I want to ask this: Do you use the update packages for both Windows and WMP? If yes, is the integration (first of all) and installation of all these patches reliable? In other words, are you completely satisfied? Thank you.

[benners]

Hi harvas,

To answer your questions, yes I do use both the Windows update packs and the WMP addon packs. As far as I can remember I have never had a problem with either of these packs, most problems seem to stem from using nlite to integrate the packs instead of Siginets Integrator, I use the integrator myself and have always found the results to be successful.

If problems due occur you can always post on the forum to see if anybody else has experienced it, and if it is reproducable I am sure a fix can be sorted.

[DonDamm]

I'm sure you have good reasons for approaching your install that way, but I can't help but wonder why you don't a) integrate all the service packs before you install, and b) integrate wmp10 before you install? There have been ample tuts here on both those topics and it really is much simpler to integrate wmp10 and all needed hotfixes and serivce packs into the build. I struggled a bit with wmp10 when I first was doing this and then found the integration scripts and stuff here which made life very much simpler. Do a search for them, and use nLite.

Edited February 26, 2006 by DonDamm