| Forum Home | ||||
| Press F1 | ||||
| Thread ID: 32624 | 2003-04-24 04:22:00 | Unattended Windows XP Pro setup fails - ProfilesDir | agent (30) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 138400 | 2003-04-24 04:22:00 | Following on from the advice in my other thread (pressf1.pcworld.co.nz), I decided to try an unattended setup. After all, how hard could it be? Well, the answer, at least for me, lies in hell. First of all, I tried making an "unattend.txt" file. Setup said it was incorrect. After I got it right, Setup tells me that "upgrading is disabled", which rules out doing an install from within Windows itself. I assume this is because my version of Windows XP is an upgrade version, so it cannot upgrade from itself. I trawled many websites, putting together unattend.txt files like a maniac, until I found one good article that said to use a program from the 'deploy.cab' located in '\support\tools' folder on the CD. Using this program, you can create a file for unattended setup. Simply put, all you have to do is enter values, save it to a floppy as 'winnt.sif', which automatically creates the 'winnt.bat' file needed, and you're away. Once I had restarted my computer, and setup ran, I noticed it reading off the floppy drive - I thought to myself "great, at least it's working". Went back later, and told it to overwrite the WINDOWS folder on the boot partition. It deleted all the files, copies the necessary files over, and rebooted. I let it go into the GUI-based setup after that, but, to my great dismay, within ten seconds, a little box with a red icon popped up. When I clicked 'OK', it displayed the contents of 'C:\WINDOWS\setuperr.log'. The following is exactly what it displayed. Error: Setup could not register the OLE Control C:\WINDOWS\System32\rsaenh.dll because of the following error: DllRegisterServer returned error 2147942421 (80070015). *** Error: Setup could not register the OLE Control C:\WINDOWS\System32\dssenh.dll because of the following error: DllRegister Server returned error 2147942421 (80070015). *** Error: The signature for Windows XP Professional Setup is invalid. The error code is 80096001. A system-level error occurred while verifying trust. *** Fatal Error: Setup failed to install the product catalogs. This is a fatal error. The setup log files should contain more information. I have already searched the internet for all three codes (2147942421, 80070015, and 80096001), but there were absolutely no relevant results. I am completely stumped by this, but don't want to have to resort to registry tweaks to change the location of the 'Documents and Settings' folder. Ooooh, there's a Microsoft article on 2147942421, reason why I didn't search earlier is because Google is supposed to crawl every just about the whole internet... Can anyone make any sense of what this Knowledge Base (support.microsoft.com) article means? I have the setup CD in my drive, and D:\Documents and Settings does exist, I know. There is, however, one thing... when I selected what partition to install Windows to, it listed the larger partition, where the 'Documents and Settings' folder I wanted to use is located (D: when I was last booted into Windows) as E:. I have a small idea of why this may be, as a Microsoft article said something about shifting drives down a letter or something - here it is (support.microsoft.com). And here is (www.hytekcomputer.com) the article I read. However, it could also be because of the way the partitions are laid out. Although the place where the D: partition is recognised as Partition2 on my HDD by Windows Setup, I created the partition when I had a second HDD in - the 6GB one, which I have since wiped and is sitting on my desk. It could also be that the smaller partition, where the WINDOWS folder is located (called ARIES), was created from unused space on the drive, which was not partitioned until last weekend. The drive's label was INSIGNIA, but I used PartitionMagic 7 to create ARIES out of the spare space, and located it before INSIGNIA, so it could be the boot drive. Is there anyway that I can put in the 'winnt.sif' file (basically unattend.txt for use off a floppy) to use something like \Device\HardDrive1\Partition2\Documents and Settigns as the folder for ProfilesDir? During the last week, though I can't recall the circumstances, I have many times seen the true path mappings that Windows uses, based off Unix. Or should I use my PartitionMagic rescue disks to re-do ARIES, after backing up critical data off it first. I only have one concern here - ARIES is formatted with NTFS, and I setup the permissions so no other users had access to it, though I think I have some tools to get around that. |
agent (30) | ||
| 138401 | 2003-04-24 05:40:00 | At a guess, an unatteneded setup would work on a new computer with empty disks. :D You have used non-MS partitioners, changed things, removed things, and done things. :_| The procedure can't be expected to work. That sort of setup is intended for an organisation which has bought a bunch of computers and wants them all set up identically. If they come with an installed OS, the only thing done would be to delete it. I am surprised that I am saying it's reasonable for MS software to not work. :D :O |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 138402 | 2003-04-24 05:53:00 | Bugger. I guess I could format the ARIES partition, and install Windows on it. And if it asks for "upgrade media", I'll simply insert my Windows ME CD. Just a side not, you wouldn't be related to the "Stewart" family, would you? |
agent (30) | ||
| 138403 | 2003-04-24 06:10:00 | I'd stick to normal installations, myself. :D Or if you want to have this as your "maintenance" reinstallation, I'm sure that there will be a way of generating a script for the unattended one during a normal install. You've seen what happens during a normal setup. It's hunting for all the different sorts of hardware, and it's asking the user to make decisions. For an unattended one, the hardware has to be "clean", so there aren't any decisions needed, or be running a script with the decisions made for that particular hardware. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 138404 | 2003-04-24 09:11:00 | Publish the sif file and how the drives are physically configured and partitioned. | Merlin (503) | ||
| 138405 | 2003-04-24 09:13:00 | And, is the upgrade CD bootable? Personally I avoid upgrade installations. | Merlin (503) | ||
| 138406 | 2003-04-24 10:07:00 | Yes, the CD is bootable. If I do a clean install, I just insert the Windows ME CD (my previous OS). Don't really think it's too suitable to upload it somewhere, so I'll post it here (winnt.sif). ;SetupMgrTag [Data] AutoPartition=0 MsDosInitiated="0" UnattendedInstall="Yes" [Unattended] UnattendMode=FullUnattended OemSkipEula=Yes OemPreinstall=No TargetPath=\WINDOWS UnattendSwitch=Yes [GuiUnattended] AdminPassword=password goes here EncryptedAdminPassword=Yes OEMSkipRegional=1 TimeZone=290 OemSkipWelcome=1 ProfilesDir="D:\Documents and Settings" [UserData] ProductKey=key goes here FullName="John Doe" OrgName="Global Networks" ComputerName=stylus [Display] Xresolution=1024 YResolution=768 [TapiLocation] CountryCode=64 Dialing=Tone AreaCode=09 [RegionalSettings] LanguageGroup=1 SystemLocale=00001409 UserLocale=00001409 InputLocale=1409:00000409 [Identification] JoinWorkgroup=GLOBAL [Networking] InstallDefaultComponents=No [NetAdapters] Adapter1=params.Adapter1 [params.Adapter1] INFID=* [NetClients] MS_MSClient=params.MS_MSClient [NetServices] MS_SERVER=params.MS_SERVER MS_PSched=params.MS_PSched [NetProtocols] MS_TCPIP=params.MS_TCPIP MS_NetMon=params.MS_NetMon MS_NetBEUI=params.MS_NetBEUI [params.MS_TCPIP] DNS=Yes UseDomainNameDevolution=No EnableLMHosts=Yes AdapterSections=params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter1 [params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter1] SpecificTo=Adapter1 DHCP=Yes WINS=No NetBIOSOptions=0 I believe PressF1 removes unnecessary blank lines, so it might look a little different. [Edited by: admin on Apr 28, 2003 8:30 AM] |
agent (30) | ||
| 138407 | 2003-04-24 10:09:00 | Oh dear, that's the second time I've posted a password without thinking. At least it's encrypted, eh? :8} ;) | agent (30) | ||
| 138408 | 2003-04-24 10:11:00 | Oh crap, my full name too. :D | agent (30) | ||
| 138409 | 2003-04-24 11:53:00 | What about the drive, partition and format data? Post it tonight rather than tomorrow |
Merlin (503) | ||
| 1 2 | |||||