I've noticed that integrating an image directly to ntoskrnl.exe, ntkrnlmp.exe,...etc, doesn't give satisfactory results if you are planning on using a large image or an image that fills the monitor screen at windows boot-up or startup, because the colours all get messed up, whereas TuneUp Utilities does the job when making a boot screen with it... So this got me thinking, what if we could somehow find a way to integrate a custom made tuneUp utilities boot screen on an windows unattended CD?

Has anyone else wondered about that too? Does anyone already know a way to do that? if so please do share with the rest of us... we'd appreciate it.

I haven't managed to do it, but here's how I tried to do it, maybe it could trigger a light bulb on someone's head:

Onto my Windows XP SP3 unattended CD, I copied the file boot.ini to the $OEM$\$1 destination, because any files that are dropped there will end up in the C:\ drive or %SystemDrive%, but before copying the boot.ini file I made sure it didn't have the 'hidden' attribute, you can't really remove that attribute, so what I did was to copy all the contents of the file and paste them on a new notepad document and save it as boot.ini on the destination folder mentioned above with the following commands:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /noexecute=alwaysoff /TUTag=5I7QLM /Kernel=TUKernel.exe
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (TuneUp Backup)" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /noexecute=alwaysoff /TUTag=5I7QLM-BAK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've even left the second line as it is, which is a backup that tuneUp Utilities makes when applying a new boot screen.

TuneUp Utilities is also Silently installed with the Windows XP unattended CD.

my problem is copying the tuneUp Utilities bootscreen files from the Windows Unattended CD to:
"Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\TuneUp Software\TuneUp Utilities\WinStyler\BootScreens" and
"Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\TuneUp Software\TuneUp Utilities\WinStyler\BootScreens\Cache"

which is where they are supposed to be located at when you apply a custom boot screen with TuneUp Utilities from within windows...

I'm not good at copying files to destinations which have long paths, because since it is an unattended installation, there is no user interaction and thus almost everything(if not verything) is handled via a hidden command line interface, and so I'd have to input copy commands for those files to those destinations.

but still, there's some other way I tried, to make sure the file got there:
I made a new folder and named it "Documents and Settings" and inside the newly named folder I made another new folder and named it "Username" and the same process with "'Application Data', 'TuneUp Software', 'TuneUp Utilities', 'WinStyler', 'BootScreens' and 'Cache'"... for example the bootscreen.tbs file stays in the "BootScreens" folder and the rest of the files stay in the "Cache" folder. I made that new folder structure in the desktop, so in the end I had in my desktop, the following: "Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\TuneUp Software\TuneUp Utilities\WinStyler\BootScreens\Cache"

I copied it from the desktop to the $OEM$\$1 destination folder of the unattended CD, and hoped it would be automatically copied to drive C:\... and it worked the files were copied, but what wasn't copied is the boot.ini file... I stopped here...

I'm at a loss here, if anyone out there has anything to add please don't hesitate...

Thanx in advance

This post has been edited by oidicle: Jul 23 2008, 06:24 PM

oidicle, boot ini is protected by Windows. You can't change it by copying. There is a bootcfg command which edit boot.ini file.
Example:

This added "/TUTag=R18WYT /Kernel=TUKernel.exe" to default OS:
Before:
After:

cmd:


Edit TUTag and Kernel options.

I hope you will understand my terrible English =)

Thanks mr shady, I'll try out your tips and see... have you tried it youself? all the unattended bootscreen thing i mean.

well, i'm tried, but it doesn't work. But I don't install Tune Up Utilities on new machine maybe because of this it doesn't work...
And boot.ini has been changed after I exec my batch.

well, i'm tried, but it doesn't work. But I don't install Tune Up Utilities on new machine maybe because of this it doesn't work...
And boot.ini has been changed after I exec my batch.

But I don't use this way. I'm just drawing image in Photoshop (16 colours only) and replacing resources 1, 4 and 8 (Bitmaps) in 4 kernels. And it works))