Jump to content

Unattended Vista with Multiple Partitions


Recommended Posts


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 registry

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell folders

the 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\Vista

Anyone experiencing the same issues?

Edited by alantangcs
Link to comment
Share on other sites

(...)

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 by footswitch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

-- WARNING -- Currently unsolved issue

If 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 ../Pictures

My 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

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.dll

3. 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 by alantangcs
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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 partition

T: Temporary files

C: Vista OS

D: Vista Apps

E: XP OS

F: XP Apps

G: Profiles

Z: DVD drive

I 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

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

  • 6 months later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...

Conclusion:

can any one paste the unattended file with c:\window d:\program files e:\profiles please

I 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 by McoreD
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

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 thread

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry873267

I 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

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...