CDSWITCH customized WPI picture

[RJTPlomp]

CDSWITCH

For those who don't know what functionality CDSWITCH adds to and unattended installation, it adds spanning your installation over multiple CD's or DVD's. Of course it kills the fully unattended goal, since you would then have to switch CD's or DVD's manually. But for those who still want it... CDSWITCH does what it does. And does it in a simple but nice way.

I was testing how WPI would work with the CDSWITCH utility (described elsewhere in this forum) and found that the default CDSWITCH picture isn't matching with the style of the (classic theme) WPI interface. So I opened Photoshop and did some design myself. It's good enough for me. And maybe some of you can use it as well. This is how it looks in use:

And this is the picture you can use:

If you want to redesign, here's a link to the Photoshop .PSD file: .PSD

Elsewhere in this forum it was explained how to use CDSWITCH from WPI. A brief summary.... combined with some of my own thoughts.

To switch to a different DVD or CD use two commandlines in the configuration of that application. To switch from the original WPI-containing disk (called VRMPVOL_EN in this example) to a CD containing Office 2003 (called OFF2003 in this example). You can configure WPI like this to install Office 2003 from a seperate disk:

COMMAND 1: CDSWITCH OFF2003 /g:VRMPVOL_EN /d /p:WPI.jpg /lc:FFFFFF /ls:12 /lf:"Times New Roman" /lw:400 /ll:49 /lt:13
COMMAND 2: %CDROM%\office\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Install\Unattended.MST /qb-
COMMAND 3: CDSWITCH VRMPVOL_EN /g:OFF2003 /d /p:WPI.jpg /lc:FFFFFF /ls:12 /lf:"Times New Roman" /lw:400 /ll:49 /lt:13

Using the variable %CDROM% for reference to the correct drive known by WPI is of course also possible. Then you would have to use commands like below:

COMMAND 1: CDSWITCH OFF2003 %CDROM% /d /p:WPI.jpg /lc:FFFFFF /ls:12 /lf:"Times New Roman" /lw:400 /ll:49 /lt:13
COMMAND 2: %CDROM%\office\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Install\Unattended.MST /qb-
COMMAND 3: CDSWITCH VRMPVOL_EN %CDROM% /d /p:WPI.jpg /lc:FFFFFF /ls:12 /lf:"Times New Roman" /lw:400 /ll:49 /lt:13

The third commandline is to switch back to the original WPI-containing disk (or any other for that matter) by running CDSWITCH from that commandline again. Kelsenellenelvian explained in a previous forum-post it's probably wiser to not switch back and forth to other disks all the time. Dividing the (to be installed) applications into ranges [1 to 50], [51-100] - [101 - xxx] and burning those 'ranges' onto different (numberwise increasing) disks would be the smartest.

Cause it's quite a hassle to get the position of the displayed LABEL in this custom picture correct ... I guess it's easier to see how I do that, with some explanation:

CDSWITCH OFF2003 /g:VRMPVOL_EN /d /p:WPI.jpg /lc:FFFFFF /ls:12 /lf:"Times New Roman" /lw:400 /ll:49 /lt:13

OFF2003

Label off the disk (CD/DVD-ROM) that contains Office 2003. This is the disk you want the user to switch to.

/g:VRMPVOL_EN

This is the label of the CD/DVD-ROM that needs to be ejected, so you know in which drive you need to put the disk with label OFF2003!

/d

This switch suppresses the AUTORUN on the disk that will be inserted (OFF2003).

/p:WPI.jpg

Makes CDSWITCH use my customized picture WPI.jpg instead of the default picture.

/lc:FFFFF

Sets the displayed label color. In this case pure white.

/ls:12

Sets the fontsize for the label.

/lf:"Times New Roman"

Font used to display the label.

/lw:400

Weight used for the font to display the label. 800 would give you bold:

/ll:49

Positions the label 49 pixels right of the default offset. Negative value would position to the left of the default (not tested!).

/lt:13

Positions the label 13 pixels below the default offset. Negative value would position above default (not tested!)

I use the GUI switch-generator to make it easy to play around with the switches. This can be downloaded from the CDSWITCH-post found elsewhere in this forum.

I hope you can make use of it.

Roland

Dordrecht, The Netherlands

Edited August 26, 2006 by RJTPlomp

[sadicq]

Cool. I think this can be added to tools archive, too.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Will be done. Thanks it looks very nice...

I just realized your image needs a bit of tweaking because of the DVD-ROM part if you could change that to just "Disk" it would be wonderfull.

[zorphnog]

Nice contribution RJTPlomp. Should be a helpful tool.

[RJTPlomp]

Will be done. Thanks it looks very nice...

I just realized your image needs a bit of tweaking because of the DVD-ROM part if you could change that to just "Disk" it would be wonderfull.

@ Kelsenellenelvian : I will change/edit my first post. I 'tweaked' it to: Please insert next CD/DVD-ROM.

Since it's quite a hassle to find out to configure CD-Switch so that it displays the LABEL at the right spot, I decided to explain a bit more about how it is done.

Nice to hear it's maybe not something just for me.

Roland

[DryKillLogic]

Great program, it was I needed but I've got a problem. When I run the appz, this show the next message "Unable to open the script file".

Somebody knows what is the problem?

Thanks in advance.

[sadicq]

Try redownloading the file and scanning it for viruses. That error is not specific to this app, but for corrupted autoit scripts; what I mean is the file you have got corrupted somehow.

[RJTPlomp]

@DryKillLogic:

I think that message appears when you run the program from the Windows GUI. It's intended for use (startup) from the commandline only. I don't think it has to do with a virus. As I remember it says something about AutoIt script error.

Try to start it from the commandline, when that works you can also use it from WPI.

Roland

Edited October 3, 2006 by RJTPlomp

[sadicq]

It should not throw an error if you launch it from the windows gui.

[RJTPlomp]

@sadicq Could be. Not sure. It could also be that when you don't use the correct syntax for switches that it throws such an error. I tried the run from gui... and indeed I don't get an error. Not sure. Maybe a virus after all.

[sadicq]

As I said, not necessarly a virus. Maybe an incomplete download. But I know that such an error (I mean with that text) is shown only if you did something really bad to the executable (unpack / try to hack / decompile etc).

CDSwitch is a little different from other executables written in AutoIT. Its special "feature" is that once you unpacked it, it won't work again.

I won't write a longer reply because I don't want my ideas to be used to decompile other programs.

[Nanaki]

CDSwitch is a little different from other executables written in AutoIT. Its special "feature" is that once you unpacked it, it won't work again.

I won't write a longer reply because I don't want my ideas to be used to decompile other programs.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Great program, it was I needed but I've got a problem. When I run the appz, this show the next message "Unable to open the script file".

As said by the people before me, rather a download problem. If it remains everytime, try downloading a different version (either the one supplied with WPI, or the one from the main mirror [see sig for that one]).

[sadicq]

Try to unpack a regular AutoIT script with upx -d and run it.

And then try to unpack CDSwitch and it will give you the error metioned above.

So I can say that CDSwitch is a little different .

[DryKillLogic]

Well I don't know what I'm doing wrong but It doesnt work.

I downloaded only the zip with cdswitch but it doesnt work either.

The file is clean so I dont guess it was a virus

Any idea?

Maybe the sintaxis is wrong but I'm testing the example.

Oh! I know maybe the mistake. Do the program work without wpi?. Because I need launch cdswitch before wpi starts the applications are in the second CD the first one is just XP

See ya!

[Nanaki]

Try to unpack a regular AutoIT script with upx -d and run it.

And then try to unpack CDSwitch and it will give you the error metioned above.

So I can say that CDSwitch is a little different .

=) That'll teach you naughty hackers! XD

Well I don't know what I'm doing wrong but It doesnt work.

I downloaded only the zip with cdswitch but it doesnt work either.

The file is clean so I dont guess it was a virus

Any idea?

Maybe the sintaxis is wrong but I'm testing the example.

Oh! I know maybe the mistake. Do the program work without wpi?. Because I need launch cdswitch before wpi starts the applications are in the second CD the first one is just XP

See ya!

Wrong syntaxes don't give that error, heh (CDswitch pretty much won't do anything then). Second, it's not wpi-only. Third, what happens when you execute "cdswitch test 1" in your normal windows environment?