installing Litestep silently during unattended XP install? Thread last updated on 2004-07-23 07:45:09

Posted by member 53448 on 2004-07-21 11:47:56

Mjello,

just wanted to hear if this is possible, or maybe I could "just" copy over the files over during install and set Litestep as the default shell via. some odd registry tweak?

I searched around a bit for this, haven't found anything yet... Any takers?

Thanks...

Posted by member 182 on 2004-07-21 20:17:31 link

i wouldn't suggest this, since explorer.exe is needed to install some updates. i may be wrong, but back when internet explorer 6 was released, many people complained about explorer folder views being messed up until they switched to explorer as shell, which allowed the installer to finish doing it's stuff.

Posted by member 53448 on 2004-07-22 10:26:04 link

Well, the updates are installed before the software is. So that shouldn't be a problem... But is it possible at all?

Posted by member 31 on 2004-07-22 10:33:26 link

A silent install? Not that I know of, at least not using Omar's installer. You could create your own setup... install it once, configure everything then zip it up into a self extracting archive, and have it run a setshell util on extraction. I assume every machine you're doing it on is the same configuration, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Posted by member 178951 on 2004-07-22 14:30:27 link

i've done a LOT of study and work on unattended installs.

in theory, if you have an unattended cd ready to go, this should be really easy to do. here's the steps it would require. (this is assuming you know the basics of creating an unattended install)

copy your current LS folder to:
[cd root]\$OEM$\$1\
and the litestep dir will be copied to the root of your c: drive.

next you have to have a .reg file ready to go to import the key to tell windows to change the shell to litestep. it's easy to make, just make a text file with this inside it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"Shell"="c:\litestep\litestep.exe"

and then change the extention of that text file to .reg

place that in your $1\install dir and make a callout from your installation batch file to that reg file and voila! you're done.

let me know if this is confusing, i can probably explain more if need be.

Posted by member 53448 on 2004-07-23 04:48:34 link

nope, I understand everything you say :) It was basically the .reg settings I needed to use I was looking for, or any switches to the installer, if there were any...

But this should be easy enough as you say, it's basically the only thing I'm missing on my unattended XP cd =) so thanks for your ideas... I'll let ppl know how it works out.

Posted by member 178951 on 2004-07-23 07:45:09 link

let me guess, on the MSFN boards? :)

there doesn't need to be a switch for the litestep install, it's basically just the contents of a directory that get created. all the installer does is configure the .rc files for you. if all your settings are already done, it's just a matter of copying the files over.