It starts off by saying this:


Ok, fine. So we use winnt32 from WinPE.

But then it says:


Alright so... when do we get to run winnt32?



What happened to running winnt32?

Just wait.. it gets better:


Click to view attachment

Ok so if the Factory tool just used winbom.ini to install windows, why would we run winnt32?

Now take a look at this.. remember according to the quotes above, we are running Factory -winpe.


But take a look at the highlighted section of the table.
Click to view attachment

You see that? First it says SourcePath under [ComputerSettings] is used to determine the location of the i386 folder. But if you look at that table, in winpe mode, we don't process that entry.

Anyone know what REALLY happens when you run factory -winpe?

Moved per member request.

Sorry I cannot offer much help betamax, I never really work much with unattended CDs but I know you'll get excellent help.

shameless bump

1) Configures your WinPE environment as specified through winbom.ini (or via it's own defaults, ie, add network support).
2) If the winbom specifies the configset, Lang, etc., copy over all files necessary to run setup
3) launch winnt32 to finish staging files.

What running winnt32 does (without factory -winpe):
1) Requires that you have access to local Windows setup files (either staged on CD/HDD or network share)
2) Stages the files and starts setup.


Essentially, factory -winpe was supposed to make it easy for you to image home or pro via a single file. All it accomplishes is copying over the i386 folder (and components if staged correctly) to your local drive (again, specified in winbom.ini) and launches the winnt32.exe file.

But the problem is: the copy destination is determined by the SourcePath entry under [ComputerSettings].

However, when running factory -winpe, the SourcePath entry isn't read (see image above).

How then, is factory.exe supposed to know where to copy the source files?

bumped without shame or remorse

bumped... I REGRET NOTHING!!!

WinPE, its environments, factory.exe and others, are not used for setting up Windows at all. What these do is to create the Windows PE environment.

%systemroot% refers to the directory that contains Windows PE (either harddrive:\minint or cdrom:\i386) Windir likewise points to these directories. You could, for example, have both WinPE (on d:\i386) and a copy of what is to be copied to the hard drive (eg \c\i386), on the same cdrom. When you build the hard disk (prepared and formatted by WinPE), you then run the install with a source of c:\i386 [so the files are available to the user] by using Winnt.exe.

You can use, eg a version of Windows PE based on XP SP1 to set up Windows 2000, for example.

The stuff about 'sealing' and 'resealing' has little to do with the end user. What these do is to reset the default countdown for the validation to undone, and allow OOBE to run.

Factory.exe is a kind of menu-program, that runs different apps for different programs. It apparently loads up the run-once menu before this is run, and this is run when the system boots. It can, for example, run things like connect to a network for the source diskettes.

FACTORY is used to copy the i386 directory, et al, from some off-computer source to the local computer, eg over a network, or from some other location (flash-disk or cd-rom). Files from the directory d:\winxp\i386 on the cdrom to, say c:\source on the hard drive. This is required, because the new owner of the computer must have the full i386 directory.

WINNT is used to actually set Windows up. The source directory is the directory that contains the i386 directory, eg if the source is installed to c:\source\i386, then the source directory in WINNT is c:\source. Windows then copies the required files from here to $WIN_NT$.~BT and $WIN_NT$.~LS, the first on the boot drive, the second on the drive where the \WINDOWS directory is to eventuate.