I've been trying to reinstall xp in a HP. First I tried the F10 key for a recovery. It froze. Tried to reboot to F10. said I couldn't boot it there. So I'm trying to install it by cd. It freezes. It's a circle of formatting and installing.

I don't see how your topic is related to nlite

I'm having exactly same problem right after using nLite on my XP setup files...
My VMWARE has been frozen at 9 min mask for a looooong time now and everything worked fine before using nLite... so this topic MIGHT BE related to nLite.
Maybe there is some kind of bug in newest version?

Sorry, for my bad english, too.
But :

doesn´t make sense to me...
Do you mean :
You used former nlite versions and they worked fine ?
or:
You didn´t and now, first time use, the installation hangs ?
Well at least, you said, you´re using nlite, "dizzydog" didn´t !
So, guys where´s your last_session_ini ?

"My car suddenly stopped !" is not much info !

Agi

Yes I used former nlite version and it worked fine...
I did my "unattended AIO-DVD" about a year ago and version number then was about 1.0 then...

I'm currently updating my AIO-DVD and I decided to start from scratch and to do everything manually so I could learn something... but I gave up in removing Outlook Express and Movie Maker decided to remove then with nLite.

It's possible that in my case the problem is that not all files are "clean"...
I use SVCPACK, $OEM$ and RunOnceEx methods if that matters at all..
Anyway here is my Last Session.ini:

I ONLY removed Outlook Express and Movie Maker...
I'm going to try to reproduce this error by running nLite on completely unedited XP-install files...

Edit1: Yup it froze on 9 minutes left again and this time only thing done to XP setup files was removing OE and MM with nLite 1.4 RC2.
I'm going to try this one more time with older version of nLite...

Edit2: This time I used nLite 1.3.5 and everything worked like it should.

I had EXACTLY this same problem, time after time.

For me this was fixed by right clicking the working folders for Win XP, and the Drivers, and the Hotfixes & Add Ons, and the WMP slipstream, and REMOVE THE READ ONLY CHECKMARK, before you start your work with nLite.

I know it sounds so simple it's almost a joke, BUT IT WORKS!!!

For me, this is what completely solved the "hang at 9 min installation" problem.

maybe nuhi can make it so it will remove the "read-only" automatically before nLite does its thing lol, this might remove some more problems related to read-only, even the ones we might not know about yet

that's interesting.
Not disabling the "background intelligent service" (BITS) also works for me.

ah ha! A glimmer of light..

Anyway, if we are integrating a root cert update KB, these KBs often head out to MSFT to verify root certs. If these things depend on having BITS up and running, I can well see the thing failing and causing a problem at either t9 or t13.

It "appears" as though rootsupd.exe can fail in several ways, both at t9 (fatal) and at t13 (recoverable with a click on a dialog box) and that it's dependant on network latency to MU as well as whether or not BITS is running.

Can someone with a better understanding of hotfix packaging, in particular the root cert hotfix packaging, check this out.

Also might be an unintended consequence of using nlite to remove all lan drivers and then replacing them with the BtS packs. If nlite has pulled all lan drivers, then XP setup won't be able to setup and start a network, which in turn might be required for rootsupd.exe to run properly. BtS drivers (I think) don't get unpacked until after first boot/login.

These might be dependancies nuhi can test for and then advise people to help them away from making bad choices......

Just posting to let you all know that I'll be checking this.

TooMuchFreeTime, I have tried your preset on the XP SP1 and it didn't fail.
Also tried adding read-only attributes on files, still worked.
That BITS service notion is only one that makes sense, if you disable something or remove a needed component for those which are left it may hang there.
I believe that your problem is real but it's not easily reproduceable, and why do you use SP1 in the first place, try slipstreaming SP2 first, then configure.

If anyone else has anything to add please do. Also I noticed that those with unexplained hanging do something extra, like scripts or AIO...if there wasn't a notion that 1.3.5 works I wouldn't even test this. So try to explain to me exactly how to reproduce it, or you do it, first start the test on the clean installation files and don't do anything extra to it.

hi nuhi,
the hangs occurs only when BITS is disabled AND you have read only attribute (on all files used).
If BITS is left as default but have read only attribute it won't hang.
If BITS is disabled, but don't have read only attribute, again , it won't hang.
So , in order to the hang to occur, you must have both.


all right, will try

well, when I don't add anything, it doesn't hang ...
I don't know if it comes from the drivers, or the xables package.
Performing an other test with xables added...

@nuhi

I'm actually having hard time to reproduce this error reliably now but I did two attemps:
Firts I installed newest version of nLite

Test 1:

- Copied all files directly from XP install CD that has SP1 /integrated on it and used nLite on them
(ONLY removed Outlook Express and Movie Maker)
- Tested under VMware and it did not hang up at 9 min mark!

Test 2: same as #1 except:

- Since I had untouched XP SP1 setup files on my harddrive (diffirent folder than on test 1) I copied them to a new folder and run nLite on it and ONLY removed Outlook Express and Movie Maker and this time "directories"
- Tested under VMware and it did hang up at 9 min mark!

Screenshot trying to cover important things:
http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image1ff4.png

Some things that might be somewhat important:

- XP install CD used on test 1 had SP1 integrated on it manually sometime in 2002 and no other changes
- I did use UltraISO to create .iso file from nLited files and used bootsector that I ripped from my XP-CD...
This was unnecassary since nLite has it own bootable CD maker but when I first encountered this error I didn't remember this function existed... after all it had been ages since I used nLite.
- I never loaded "last session" on any of my tests
- I have my BITS service on manual and it has not been started
- Read-only attribute was greyed out on both test folders

It seems that nLite version may not be cause of this problem...

most probably.


"This is one of the last V8 Interceptors..." (Mad Max)
A vanilla XP "GOLD" CD, soiled with an SP1 ? ...
Wish, I had one !


...but nothing about it, shows up in the LSini, so if you insert them, right before making the iso, what are they ?
If you didn´t, in your last tests, disregard my question.

Did you check all files, when nlite hung, before, if they may be corrupt ?
Winrar does a pretty good job.
Had a problem once, saved everything on a FAT32 partition and was running an nlited system with FAT32->NTFS removed.

Agi

TooMuchFreeTime, have you checked if maybe you're removing some of your folders with the "Directories" and thus it fails during your scripts.

i'm having exactly same problem, remove readonly and not disbling the BITS doesnt work for me

here my preset:

should i use different version?

thanks

just let you guys know, i tried again with same preset i posted above with nlite v1.3.5 and it's working no problem!!!

hi,
tested with my original "last_session.ini" , with read only + BITS disabled.
Well, I'm unable to reproduce the problem again
The fact, is that since last time I'm working on a "different" system (XP nlited in a different way).
I don't think that the system is indirectly affecting nlite and the iso....
At the end , this hanging at 9 minute look like a bug that appears randomly,
or very hard to reproduce reliably.
At least , if it doesn't hang when using vmware,
then there are chances your builded iso won't hang during a real install.

I haven't noticed "Directories" removing anything else than useless DOCS, SUPPORT and VALUEADD directories on root of CD like it is supposed to...

I tried exactly same .iso that hangs up in VMware in Microsoft Virtual PC and it didn't hang at all...
maybe this is hang-up is related to VMware and not nLite?
I don't have a extra real computer to try how it works in real world but it might work anyway...

Older version of nLite worked for me anyway and I failed to reproduce the error couple of times on even newest version when trying to do it on purpose althought I eventually managed to do it again...

This error seems to be extremely rare and it seem somewhat random like "extrabigmehdi" said and it is somewhat hard reproduce even on purpose... so it might not be worth it to waste lot energy to investigate it anyway...

It is unlikely that I can invite you over to see VMware install to fail anyway...
I _COULD_ upload the .iso somewhere if you are intrested but that would be kind of illegal...

Personally I'm not going to waste any more time with this very rare and random error as I allready got around it unless you think it might be useful others...

One potential 'fix' could be as simple as having nlite always clear read-only attributes in a similar way to what the BtS Driver Base does.

Has anyone tried a 'hung' .iso in a VM other than VMWare or Microsoft VirtPC? How about adding Virtualbox to the testing mix. A BITS/network driver/connectivity issue could be related to how VMWare does it's device presentation to a client OS. That we have someone reporting an OK result with VPC and failures with VMWare begs for a third test with Xen or Virtualbox.

Nuhi has chased other obscure 'bugs' before and the end result was always an improved nlite.

Ok I added the read only cleanup in the next one but I don't believe that will help.
Anyway worth the try since it is a very weird bug.

cool beans, does this imply an RC3 in the pipeline?

It will be the final since that SFC popup on driver install is fixed. At least for those just integrating (IE7 included) and not removing anything.

:woot:

(for all of those 'final festishists' out there anyway......)