The title says it all. Someone I know says they have a Universal Home OEM disc. That is, a disc that will install on Dell, HP, Gateway, whatever using their OEM keys. Not sure if these two kats know what they're talking about. If you know of such an animal and would like to PM me w/ a link, kool. If you can even confirm the feasibility, that'd be kool too. Based on the (very) little research I've done on this OEMBIOS stuf, I know some kind of Universal OEM CD/DVD is pos. Fer sure, one could do it w/ some sort of script to copy the XP distribution files onto the PC's hard drive, then extract/patch the appropriate OEM files from an archive on the DVD media, then launch the install (unattended or regular.) At this point, I've already made my own multi-boot DVD w/ a menu that has Unattended *and* Std installs for the VLK Ed, as well as Home OEM Ed, so adding a little script (as I describe) isn't a big deal at all. I would love to get a link to a couple of ready-made Universal Home and Pro ISOs, but so far this looks like a DIY project. No biggie. Later.... :-- MR --:
Interesting. I was certain someone mite've at least seen something "home-grown" in the wild, in the form of a torrent, etc. Since starting this thread, I've collected a few orig OEM discs for analysis, but haven't spent enuf time figuring out the OEMBIOS issues and where to get the OEM keys to make my disc work. But this will definitely help a great deal. Thanx very much.... :-- MR --:
Adding this data to your $OEM$ folder will make it behave no different than any other as you must provide an avenue to execute oemscan manually. I have oemscan.exe ran from cmdlines.txt, so you will need to configure it to only be ran when the HOEM install will be used. It might be ran from WINNT.SIF as well. You should have a WINNT.SIF in each stub directory for each setup type and by only running oemscan.exe from the WINNT file thats in your HOEM directory should be the best bet. It will just get ignored in the other setups if nothing is there to call oemscan to execute in those setups. Its just something you will have to test out. SVCPACK file might be another way to have it launched as well.
No, it must be executed from CMDLINES not WINNT.SIF (altho I can't speak about SVCPACK time.) At least, I only know of the [GUIRunOnce] key in WINNT.SIF, which is launched after XP has already been almost completely installed. I wouldn't even ask the question if this were a couple of years ago, as I had many opportunities to test something like this back then. But my chance is coming tomorrow, w/ a Sony that "needs" a wipe. I really think it'll work. Thanx for your help and watch this space.... :-- MR --:
You may be right in respect to launch times, but these files can be swapped after setup is done ive done it many times it just requires a restart afterward to let Windows activate. SVCPACK is launched at T13 (thirteen minuets left for setup) when hotfixes are executed.
SS: You mean you can launch the CMDLINES script (once it's renamed to .CMD, of course) well after SETUP has finished ? Wow ! This is really good info. You've made all of this so much easier ! Thanx yet again.... :-- MR --:
I have never done it that way, I just swap the files manually. Ive only had to do it in cases where the OEMBIOS files didnt match correctly and I had to go find "obsolete" files that do work. SFC may pop up a message about files being changed, just ignore it and choose Yes to allow the changes. You wont ever have to do this if everything goes smoothly during setup.
Do I Have To Replace The Files Within The VLK Version Of Windows XP? Like PIDGen.dll, Setupp.ini Any Of Them FIles? Or Do I Just Leave It Alone And Add The $OEM$ folder? or is there an easier way for me to take a dell XP Pro & Acer XP Pro And Make Them Into 1 CD?
Yeah, 1st you will need to replace those specific corporate files with Retail PRO files. 1.) Swap these files from a Retail Pro disk: NT5INF.CA_ PIDGEN.DLL SETUPREG.HIV DPCDLL.DL_ 2.) Copy the four compressed OEMBIOS files from any OEM set inside the I386 folder replacing the VLK set. 3.) Open the SETUPP.INI file and change last three digits of the PID value from 270 to OEM 4.) Make sure if you use a WINNT.SIF file to replace the corporate key, if it has one, with a PRO SLP key (I just use a HP Pro SLP key inside WINNT.SIF and HP oembios files inside the I386 folder). 5.) Now, just add the oemscan contents inside the $OEM$ folder..make sure you also download and use the PRO version oemscan files. These files are different from the Home version files so overwrite them. ****NOTE: The Compaq OEMBIOS.DAT file in the Home files download may be corrupted. Cant remember if I swapped these before or after I posted the original thread. May be best to grab a new Compaq set and overwrite them just in case****
I don't suppose you have ever considered uploading these wonderful disks somehwere I mean, with those 3 disks you can legitimately reinstall all your mates computers saving them from being stiffed for £££ by tech support to send out an install disk (which they should have been sent in the first place).
Most likley not here because its a modded disk and would probably be in the warez area if I provided the entire ISO. They are not that hard to make anyway with the file I uploaded. You just need to copy over the files and burn it to disk. To change XP versions just requires replacing the keys inside OEMSCAN.INI and OOBEINFO.INI with SLP keys that match the XP version you want to use them for.