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What we have learnt so far


Aaron

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it does if you set it u[p right. In another thread it is explained that you need to list your motherboard then raid then video card drivers. If you dont bad things will happen. I;'m not sure as it jsut simply worked for me but this is the way it is supposed to be done so I will change it in my setup to ward off any future problems.

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medic, been a strange week at work, with roll-ups etc and two more security breaches.

I will talk to the athena developer this afternoon and get the orca from him if he has it today

Orca is used for editing .MSI files and other kinds to am i right as i got a copy of that with MSI3.0 beta test i am in.

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How about a 101 guide to debugging? It's too easy to post "This ain't working" and then 100 lines of code. If you interested, I could give you some ideas. Tips should include:

Try running batch commands from the command prompt before burning them on a cd.

Include a "pause" in the batch commands when testing, to see if any errors show up.

Avoid using names with spaces, unless it is needed. Is "Program Files" really any more informative than "Programs"? (Personally I keep everything under 8 letters, but perhaps I'm just showing my age...)

The fewer the changes made, the easier it is to find the error. Add things little by little to a working setup/configuration.

Keep any cutting and pasting of code to a minimum. If you are having trouble with the swiches in an installation, there is no need to post all the "DEL" statements in your batch file. As Joe Friday says: "Facts. Just the Facts, Ma'am"

I'm sure there is more. I like the idea of a minimalist CD layout template, with $OEM$, WINNT.SIF, CMDLINES.TXT, COMMANDS.COM - Which calls a (blank) .reg file.

Yes, MS's way and WebMedic's way of the hotfixes are one and the same, except that WebMedic takes it much further. (I have to admit, I just made a couple of changes to his first script, and have not updated 'cause it works just fine.)

I hope this gives some ideas. I don't mean to sound cocky - I know I have only been here a few weeks - but I have been around debugging for a while, and am familiar in working with those still somewhat new in the matter.

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How about a 101 guide to debugging? It's too easy to post "This ain't working" and then 100 lines of code. If you interested, I could give you some ideas. Tips should include:

Try running batch commands from the command prompt before burning them on a cd.

Include a "pause" in the batch commands when testing, to see if any errors show up.

Avoid using names with spaces, unless it is needed. Is "Program Files" really any more informative than "Programs"? (Personally I keep everything under 8 letters, but perhaps I'm just showing my age...)

The fewer the changes made, the easier it is to find the error. Add things little by little to a working setup/configuration.

Keep any cutting and pasting of code to a minimum. If you are having trouble with the swiches in an installation, there is no need to post all the "DEL" statements in your batch file. As Joe Friday says: "Facts. Just the Facts, Ma'am"

I'm sure there is more. I like the idea of a minimalist CD layout template, with $OEM$, WINNT.SIF, CMDLINES.TXT, COMMANDS.COM - Which calls a (blank) .reg file.

Yes, MS's way and WebMedic's way of the hotfixes are one and the same, except that WebMedic takes it much further. (I have to admit, I just made a couple of changes to his first script, and have not updated 'cause it works just fine.)

I hope this gives some ideas. I don't mean to sound cocky - I know I have only been here a few weeks - but I have been around debugging for a while, and am familiar in working with those still somewhat new in the matter.

if you made a few changes Can you pm them to me I'd like to see.

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Correct Terminator,

But Orca is the MSI class builder and framework.Medic and I are trying to suss out if the .net runtime module can be truly integrated to the existing slipstream install framework

I see

Thanks for letting me no i was a bit unsure on that.

:)

EDIT:

If thats the case and it edits .MSI files then you can use that to edit WINNT32.MSI in the I386 folder to edit the fonts and font sizes in windows setup.

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I've been doing the The Combination Installation this evening (which uses svcpack), and that was a very nasty peice of work. Very very tedious and time consuming, with mistakes very easy to make and difficult to trace. I spent 2-3 hours doing it and after finishing installation, Windows XP wouldn't boot, leaving a black screen. :) I won't be adding this to the guide as most users won't like this.

Anyway webmedic, you said earlier you made a script to automate all this, so I'm interested to see what you've done. Although it must have been a difficult script to make to create the svcpack.inf and all the .cat and .exe lines in svcpack.inf and then replacing all the files in the i386 directory with updated versions?

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Jeez, Aaron, did you need to give yourself a Sunday Flogging? WebMedics scipt does exactly that, in less then a minute, works like a charm, and eliminates those silly cut'n'paste type mistakes. They probably spent more time writing the guide than WebMedic spent on the script. I downloaded from here somewhere ... The title of the thread had "SlipStream" in it. (I looked at that MS guide, too, and was quickly disuaded.)

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hehe, where's webmedic's script? Is it in the "How to install Hotfixes and Raid correctly" thread? Last time I looked, it looked like a batch file that runs switches on the hotfix files in 3 seperate folders, so it isn't exactly integrated into the i386 folder. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I might have looked at it the wrong way)

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Oh dear.

Hands Aaron the icepack.

I'll have a revised procedure for the rollup install to you in a little bit

in the meantime, do not slipstream the files to i386 until I get that to you as they will blow the install out under uncontrolled conditions

(some of the files mismatch out of the driver and sp1 cabs (known problem)

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@Aaron: Yes that was the thread. I use one of the first versions, so, yes, I do have to manually copy everything into I386. Anyway, looks like Spheris has got 'cha covered. On the other hand, I haven't blown up anything yet doing it that way. Maybe using different hardware does not have the problems.

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