footswitch Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Also change these keys:HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\shell foldersThat worked in Windows NT version 5. All my tries in Vista produced no results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alantangcs Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 (edited) Still working on my Vista Unattended.Here's a little gotcha/bug with the Vista setup.I used the profile path G:\Profiles\Vista in the answer file (G:\Profiles\XP is for the XP Documents and Settings - I'm dual botting).However, in the VM where I installed vista, I perused the hard drives and found G:\Profiles\Users instead. I think this is a bug with the Vista setup. Has anyone else seen the same problem when using not placing the Users directory on the root of the drive?Also, I noticed that in the registryHKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell foldersthe values for the paths are all for C: as they would be without the customized paths. That is, the profiles folder key is still C:\Users, even though Vista has been set up with G:\Profiles\Users. I go into explorer and all the Documents, Music, Pictures links work correctly.Here's even more strangeness... the environment variables are all set up correctly according to my unattend. I.e. %UserProfiles% is pointing to G:\Profiles\Vista!!! Even though that folder doesn't even exist?So in summary, for the user profiles folder:- Physical hard drive : G:\Profiles\Users- Registry settings : C:\Users- Environment variables: G:\Profiles\VistaAnyone experiencing the same issues? Edited December 13, 2006 by alantangcs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
footswitch Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 (edited) (...)However, in the VM where I installed vista, I perused the hard drives and found G:\Profiles\Users instead. I think this is a bug with the Vista setup. Has anyone else seen the same problem when using not placing the Users directory on the root of the drive?(...)Like I said, that portion of the registry seems to be just trash for windows vista. Changing those values never changed anything at all, at least for me.Regarding that sort of "bug", your folders are correctly named. The thing is, Vista is displaying a different folder name and accepts both the original and the new names. If you want to show only the original name, delete the desktop.ini file (it's a hidden file) inside your Users folder (in your case, located in G:\Profiles\Vista, if I can recall)EDIT: details Edited December 13, 2006 by footswitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alantangcs Posted December 13, 2006 Share Posted December 13, 2006 -- WARNING -- Currently unsolved issueIf we follow these steps (changing the Autounattend.xml to place documents and settings in another partition), the "preinstalled" symlinks will be ruined.Try to open your Documents folder and then, inside it, open My Pictures, My Music or My Videos. These links are actually (or were supposed to be) symbolic links.My Pictures should link to ../PicturesMy Music should link to ../Music... and so on.The system will display an error dialog like "access denied bla bla bla", but the fact is that the symbolic link isn't working properly. Just right-click the link and choose properties. The properties window should provide the absolute path, but it does not.I had a quick try on my VM last night. Those My Pictures and My Music links seem to work for me.Have you tried to do a "dir" in \VistaUsers\footswitch\Music as well?Thanks for your reply above. I shall give that a try tonight and try out your issue more thoroughly as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alantangcs Posted December 14, 2006 Share Posted December 14, 2006 (edited) Ok I'm getting the same problem too.At the worst, you could remove those junctions and recreate them.I did the following steps.1. Use mklink /J "My Videos 2" "G:\Profiles\Vista\Alan Tang\Videos" to create "My Videos 2".2. Change the icon to that junction by right-clicking on it in explorer and choosing properties.All the icons that the original short cuts use reside in Windows\System32\imageres.dll3. While you're in the properties, make it hidden as well since the original ones are hidden.4. Test out the new links. If they work, delete the original and rename "My Videos 2" to just "My Videos".Seems to work good for me.The interesting thing is. The moment you rename them to "My Videos" "My ___", Vista will take over them... by that I mean, they will no longer be normal shortcuts where you can edit the target and all that but will resume the behaviour of the original links.Now, I don't know what will happen when you add a new user to the computer. You may have to fix up the links that Vista automatically creates for them as well. This could get annoying. Edited December 14, 2006 by alantangcs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alantangcs Posted December 14, 2006 Share Posted December 14, 2006 Ok guys, this has really got me stumped. Could anyone help me out?Here's my AutoUnattend.xml file, placed into the root of the Vista ISO. The answer file is generated by WAIK RTM and the ISO is built with oscdimg.<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend"> <settings pass="windowsPE"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <UserData> <ProductKey> <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI> <Key>XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX</Key> </ProductKey> </UserData> </component> </settings> <settings pass="oobeSystem"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <FolderLocations> <ProfilesDirectory>G:\Profiles\Vista</ProfilesDirectory> <ProgramData>D:\ProgramData</ProgramData> </FolderLocations> </component> </settings> <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:Z:/sources/install.wim#Windows Vista ULTIMATE" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" /></unattend>I've already got Xp installed on my laptop and I've mapped the drives as follows:S: Page file and boot partitionT: Temporary filesC: Vista OSD: Vista AppsE: XP OSF: XP AppsG: ProfilesZ: DVD driveI know the ISO works because I set up a virtual machine and installed Vista on it.Then I thought I had the perfect image so I burnt it to DVD and tried it on a real computer - my laptop.First I tried booting from the DVD and installing. After it has finshed extracting files, it would throw an error "Windows could not apply the unattend settings in pass (null)". There are no more details, no indication as to what may be wrong, nothing.Next, I tried to run setup from within XP. Same thing happens.So the thing that has me stumped is, what's going on differently between the laptop and the VM that's causing the unattend settings not to be applied? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alantangcs Posted December 14, 2006 Share Posted December 14, 2006 WOOT! I've fixed it!Basically, in case any of you run into this problem, it's to do with the disk space you have.I logged into XP, removed the page file on the first partition of the drive (Vista naughtily assumes that the first partition of the disk will have enough space to copy and extract it's files. When it doesn't, it'll fail with the obscure message that it can't apply the unattended settings for pass (null). It's (null) because it technically failed before it even had the chance to start the setting up of the OS).When I've freed up enough space, Vista installed fine with no problems. phew...All good now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyde Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 can any one paste the unattended file with c:\window d:\program files e:\profiles please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashimema Posted August 27, 2007 Share Posted August 27, 2007 Anyone worked this one out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McoreD Posted May 23, 2009 Author Share Posted May 23, 2009 (edited) Conclusion:can any one paste the unattended file with c:\window d:\program files e:\profiles pleaseI think it should be clear by now that Microsoft has NO interest in splitting system folders this way like they did for Windows XP. I still believe this would have been a great feature to have so that the System Images (Symantec Ghost, Backup Exec etc.) would be considerably lower in size. I am talking of sizes as small as 4 to 5 GiB). Windows 7 introduces a 100 MiB boot partition. Its recovery mechanism is pretty powerful. Unless it is for Data backup, I no longer find it as useful to make system backups anymore. Therefore, the need to have 3 partition has gone down over the time. I am pretty much used to C:\Windows with C:\Program Files and D:\Users now. The C: partition size I keep at 50 GB (~ 48.8 GiB) and D: partition takes up rest of the free space. Edited May 23, 2009 by McoreD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpluigi Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 Hi MCoreD and others,I read with great interest what you all discussed on this thread as I am trying to reproduce teh multipartion install I was used to under Windows XP. As I mentioned in another threadhttp://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry873267I was wondering if, after a successful unattended Vista install using FolderLocations option to set custom Users and ProgramData locations, a tweaking of the registering of the remaining explicit location still originating form C: and/or the creation of symbolic link were required.It looks like the install of Windows Vista Home Premium (64bit) OEM (for custom system builder) did creat a junction for Users. However it does not look like ProgramData had junction created.Further details in the post above document the entries in the registery still referring to C:\Users or C:\ProgramData .Regarding Program Files and related folder, is a registery entry modification with symbolic a proven and reliable method to redirecting my installed programs to a custom location. In other words, I'd be interested to know if there is method to have default install location to another partition showing when installing new program which is and not interfering with and transparent to Vista OS.Thank you in advance for your suggestion.Donat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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