win2k preinstall registry hive editing...

[Ryoko]

so i'm looking into making another version of my win2k install cd, and i'd like to be able to edit the registry hive before an install. alas, i've yet to see anything telling me how to do this, yet i know it can be done.

nor am i finding any howtos/infos on playing with the win2k install texts/images >.> and while most of my nifty updates to the iso are updated installs for firefox and such, i'd really like to drop some of these registry tweaks in before install (like 48bit LBA for instance...) so a post install reg merge wouldn't really suit in this case.

any help will be lavished with praise~

..... whenever i remember to look at this thing again.

-Tsuki

Edited March 9, 2006 by Ryoko

[fdv]

any help will be lavished with praise~

..... whenever i remember to look at this thing again.

well, uhh, no need for that... convert your REG files to INF.

put these lines in your *HIV* files (HIVESFT.INF, HIVESYS.INF, those).

save the file.

install, etc.

I put

HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters","EnableBigLba",0x10001,01,00,00,00

in HIVESFT.

feel free to put the REG files in HFSVPK when running HFSLIP, which makes this easier.

Edited March 10, 2006 by fdv

[Daemonforce]

well, uhh, no need for that... convert your REG files to INF.

put these lines in your *HIV* files (HIVESFT.INF, HIVESYS.INF, those).

save the file.

install, etc.

It wasn't until last night that I discovered these INFs. It's been so long since I've actually gone through the BSOI to get to Windows setup that I forgot the rest of the hives were created here.

The INFs provide information regarding Windows preinstallation and are preserved at post-installation.

In every NT instance, there is a system hive already built by the name of SETUPREG.HIV. This is what I depend on for primitive services in a limited environment. I actually mess with this when I want to add instructions to my build or if I want to install a write filter or something. But that doesn't apply to your situation since you boot the CD, go through the BSOI and reboot to get into setup. I just skip straight to preinstallation. More than anything, you'll want to open those INFs and add the information you want to your build.

HIVECLS.INF = Classes Root. You see this section(SOFTWARE\Classes) appear in HKCR.

HIVEDEF.INF = System Defaults (Sounds, power settings, appearance)

HIVESFT.INF = This is the fun one. This is the SOFTWARE hive. Go nuts.

HIVESYS.INF = These are additional entries for the system hive. Usually if you hardset anything in SETUPREG.HIV with anything at the root called CurrentControlSet and boot in protected mode, you'll get a stop error. This is here to fix that.

HIVEUSD.INF = I've never really explored this one. It has to do with appearance and the control panel.

I put HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters","EnableBigLba",0x10001,01,00,00,00 in HIVESFT.

This is probably why I don't like your update methods.

[Ryoko]

heh. interesting methods, i'll play around with both in vmware and see where they get me. thanks guys ^_^

[nmX.Memnoch]

Create your .REG files and load them (regedit /s refile.reg) during the GUI part of setup using CMDLINES.TXT. It works in the same way the Windows XP method does. Since at that point there aren't any users on the system, any HKCU entries will be added to the Default User profile, and therefore applied to all new users who logon to the system.