System Admin

Customize the answer file

5-Jul-06 3:04

Check the event logs for any errors. Without knowing what the errors are, you're pretty much on your own for troubleshooting. There's only about a thousand possible problems...

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River4-Jul-06 17:17

Re: Customize the answer file

4-Jul-06 17:17

Hi, I have create the answer file for automate installation of windows xp. The target client is a single new machine which consite of 40GB unpartition hard disk drive. I want to customize my answer file to automatically devide disk space to 10GB format with NTFS for installation an operating system and the remain 30GB drive format as NFTS automatically to store document?

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 3:15

Re: Customize the answer file

5-Jul-06 3:15

Once again, the Windows XP Resource Kit. Unattended Installs...

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River5-Jul-06 6:36

5-Jul-06 6:36

Thank you

. I already have it.

Disk duplication

Mekong River3-Jul-06 23:47

3-Jul-06 23:47

Hi, I want to perform disk duplication to automate windows xp installation. Does any one know any resource that I could update my knowledge?

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 3:15

5-Jul-06 3:15

This stuff is pretty standard, you can find more at Wikipedia[^]. It's called "Cloning". Norton Ghost, Drive Clone, DriveImage, TrueImage, ...

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River5-Jul-06 6:00

5-Jul-06 6:00

Thank you very much for your comment. I also implement a mini setup for disk duplication but what is an obstacle for me is doing an image of the hard disk. For example, norton ghost could be able to ghost a hard disk and restore an image to the other computer. And now what I need is a step by step guide to ghost/image a hard disk from a source computer to destination computer.

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 6:14

5-Jul-06 6:14

Roath Kanel wrote:
And now what I need is a step by step guide to ghost/image a hard disk from a source computer to destination computer.

There is no "step-by-step" guide. You have to put your own pieces together depending on your own environment.

Ghost, or any other image software, is fully capable of writing a hard drive image to a file somewhere, be it on a set of CD's, a DVD, an external hard drive, or a network drive. What you do depends entirely on your deployment requirements and storage medium.

If you want to slam just one or two machines at a time, then creating a boot CD with the image software on it and keeping the drive image file on a set of CD's or DVD's is perfrectly fine.

If you have to deploy to hundreds of machines, then a network solution would work better.

I myself, use PowerQuest's (now part of Symantec) ImageCenter. It comes with a Server component you can setup on a machine to store and serve up nothing but disk images. You still need to create your own boot floppy or CD to get the target machines up and running so you can image them. You still need to build network support into those floppies/CD's by including DOS-based drivers for your network card(s) or CD drivers to get the read from a CD. But this depends on what image software you're using. You might even have to include support for loading different sets of drivers if you want those boot CD's to work on different network cards and/or reading from CD's...

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River5-Jul-06 6:24

5-Jul-06 6:24

Thank you very much for your detail explaination. So now I decide to find a documentation about the specific product on how to made an image of the hard disk drive. If I found any problem I will post the question to this forum again.

Best regard,
Kanel

Mike Dimmick5-Jul-06 5:58

Mike Dimmick

5-Jul-06 5:58

Read up on SysPrep[^].

Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder

Mekong River5-Jul-06 6:04

5-Jul-06 6:04

Thank you very much for your article. But what is an objstacle for me is the step by step guide on how to image a hard disk and restore it on the other machine as I mention in the previous post[^].

USMT

Mekong River3-Jul-06 23:43

3-Jul-06 23:43

Hi, I want to practic USMT for windows xp from windows 2003. Does any one know the resource that I could read to perform this practic?

Re: USMT

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 3:11

5-Jul-06 3:11

Windows XP Resource Kit...

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Re: USMT

Mekong River5-Jul-06 6:15

5-Jul-06 6:15

Thank

ACE

Mekong River3-Jul-06 23:41

3-Jul-06 23:41

Hi, on NTFS file system, administrator would be able to set the permission for the specific user or group. The permission is set in Access Control List (ACL) and store in Access Control Entry (ACE). What I want to know is: Where does Access Control Entry is stored? Is it a file or not?

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 3:09

5-Jul-06 3:09

No, it's not a file. It's parts of the files directory entry in the filesystem.

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River5-Jul-06 6:12

5-Jul-06 6:12

Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
It's parts of the files directory entry in the filesystem

So, what is file directory entry? I want to know its store location.

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 6:18

5-Jul-06 6:18

Roath Kanel wrote:
So, what is file directory entry?

You don't know anything about how file systems work, do you? Seriously, I'm not bashing you, I'm asking...

If not, this[^] is a great place to find out.

Roath Kanel wrote:
I want to know its store location.

It's in the system area of the partition, not in a "file" per se.

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River5-Jul-06 6:30

5-Jul-06 6:30

Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
You don't know anything about how file systems work, do you? Seriously, I'm not bashing you, I'm asking...

Yes, I know about the file system.

Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
It's in the system area of the partition, not in a "file" per se.

Thank you for your explaination. I ask this question because I want to build my own programming application which read about the permission which apply for the specific user or group. So that is the reason that I ask this question.

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 6:50

5-Jul-06 6:50

There's no support for Access Control in .NET 1.x, but there is in 2.0. System.Security.AccessControl Namespace[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River5-Jul-06 14:53

5-Jul-06 14:53

Thank you very much for your information. Currently I use vb.net 2003 and .net framework 1.1. Beside of using .net framewor 2.0. Are there any other solution that I could do it?

Dave Kreskowiak5-Jul-06 15:34

5-Jul-06 15:34

Liek I said, there's nothing native built into the .NET Framework 1.x. You'll have to use a 3rd party library or write one yourself. Be warned! In the case of object security, this is NOT easy. You'll be P/Invoking LOTS of Win32 functions to death! You'll have to rewrite all the structures involved and they get pretty complex.

You're best bet is to search the articles for "ACL" or "ACE" or Google for ".NET NTFS Security".

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

Mekong River5-Jul-06 18:55

5-Jul-06 18:55

Dave Kreskowiak wrote:
You'll have to use a 3rd party library or write one yourself

Thank you very much for your comment. And do you know any 3rd party library?

Dave Kreskowiak6-Jul-06 2:27