WadeV1589

Well I think that fixed it. For some reason the keys there were CommonFilesDir(x86) and ProgramFilesDir(x86)...see the tiny difference? Added 2 more keys with spaces in and so far all installations seem to be using the right directories. So thanks for that, one of those things I would've never ever noticed, a missing space!...The question is, how on earth did it happen on a fresh install? o.o

I just cannot work out what on earth is going on but after a fresh install when I try and install things like Visual Studio, Adobe Acrobat or MSN Messenger they default to "C:\Windows\Program Files (x86)". What I don't get is a search in the registry for "Program Files (x86)" comes up blank, so does "C:\Windows\Program Files", as well as "%\Prog" (incase it's using a short name). The ProgramFiles and ProgramFiles(x86) set variables are both correct (pointing to D:\Prog...) and the registry values at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion are both correct. Of course other installation programs work fine and detect the correct folder but a lot are not and I am totally stumped where they're getting this Windows\Program Files (x86) directory from. Anyone got any idea's at all what could be causing this?

Yeah I'm in need of this too now Luckily the uxtheme.dll patch was easy to find but I can't find this one anywhere yet!

It doesn't seem to allow you to choose which is the first device...or the first device Windows XP setup see's.

In the end I had to go into the BIOS and disable it...wasn't really happy about having to do that, there really needs to be an option to control the true boot order and drive order on this motherboard - Abit NF7-S 2.0 for those of you wondering which motherboard doesn't seem to let you.

I have 2 hard drives, a 120g partitioned so the first partition is 4gb and is where I currently have XP installed, this is the SATA connected drive. The second drive is 40gb and is connected via the IDE cable. Last time I installed XP it wrote the boot record to the first partition on the 40gb drive and installed Windows onto the first partition of the SATA connected drive. I don't want this because I want to be able to remove the 40gb drive and my PC not fail to boot up because none of the boot information is on the C:...Windows is on the C: BTW but during setup it's detected as F:.

I don't think this is for the drivers forum seen as it's more to do with XP setup and how it reads the drives but... Anyway so I've got it accepting my SI3112 fine and XP setup asks me to choose which drive to install to (hoorah!) however...my PC also has one hard drive that is connected via the older IDE cable. What I want to know is how can I get my PC to say "SATA is first"...right now I get my older drive being recognised first and as a result in setup it says C: is on that instead of being on the SATA connected drive.

Well I got home today, ran Office Shrink and...it worked! Nothing had changed, I was even using exactly the same files that I had left on my hard drive from the time before. Go figure!

I tried the original CD and the result was the same. I'll have to get you the logs when I get home and re-run it - Terminal Services + VMware is painful even on DSL!

It keeps telling me shrinkage is already complete. I've followed the admin install point guide and created an mst file and this is being run in a clean xp install (on VMware). This is Office 2003 and all I want is Outlook. office.log

I gave Aston a go and got nowhere, tried a manual install by copying over the aston directory and the registry files...it just loaded up borked.

I'm installing at the T-13 stage using a command line start /wait %CDROM%\SOFTWARE\Zonealarm\ZAPSETUP_45_594_000.EXE /s /noreboot That's it.

So just to clear this up I searched for Zonealarm, read every thread it was mentioned in and tried the command line options and sure enough it's silent but it refuses to install at T-13 saying "Could not find C:\Documents." or "Cannot find C:\Documents".

I'm not insane right? This code could not possibly cause this problem could it? As you can see it sets up a non Windows piece of software and MSN Messenger and I'm getting the problem! Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Pathfinder] "AutoClose"=dword:00000000 "ExcludeBots"=dword:00000001 "IncludeEmptyServers"=dword:00000000 "Speed"=dword:00000004 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger] "AppSettings"=hex:02,02,01,00 "DisableTabs"=hex:01,00,00,00 "InstalledMSNCertificate"=dword:00000000 "RTCTuned"=dword:00000001 "ShowCustomEmoticons"=hex:01,00,00,00 "TaskListState"=hex:03,00,00,00 "AlwaysOnTop"=hex:00,00,00,00 "CrossPromoRefreshLogon"=hex:01,00,00,00 "DSBkgndMode"=hex:01,00,00,00 "MobileFilter"=hex:01,00,00,00 "SharePassportCredentials"=hex:00,00,00,00 "ShowCustomEmoticons"=hex:01,00,00,00 "ShowEmoticons"=hex:01,00,00,00 It seems that the second I modify the HKCU stuff at T-13 it breaks something! I've had HKLM stuff going in before but added that in post-install and it failed then so I instantly got rid of that as a potential problem. I am totally lost now!

Well I just did an install with the minimal HKCU changes and it still made it fail...so right now I'm going to apply totally inactive settings to HKCU and see if it causes it to fail, if it does I have a serious problem going on here!

Going to try that shortly. Merci!

I hope to god you aren't suggesting I watch football!

I've thought about that, but seen as each install takes 20 minutes and is repetative I thought I should post here first see if someone recognises the problem before I go spending a day re-installing Windows again!

Except if I do that it works fine...I can apply this registry file once Windows is fully installed without problems, it's when it's applied at the T-13 stage - which it needs to be to affect all users.

Launches folder windows in a separate process, uses more memory but if one crashes the rest don't. And I think you crossed two things I said, if I apply those registry settings it seems to break most Installshield apps, they just refuse to install.

I haven't put SP2 in yet, I'm waiting for the final, basically I've been getting this CD ready for when SP2 comes out then I'll do a complete wipe to start fresh then; my PC is getting more and more picky each day (read: explorer loves to crash).

If I apply the following registry changes at the T-13 stage so they become global Installshield applications in Windows (once setup is complete) seems to fail. It took me ages to work out what was causing it, I separated my registry files and in the end it was applying this registry file that causes the problem. Just to clarify, if these settings are applied at the T-13 stage Installshield installations tend to fail (most notably in VMware, you can't install the tools, you get "Invalid command line parameters"). Anyone know what could possibly be causing this? [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Pathfinder] "AutoClose"=dword:00000000 "ExcludeBots"=dword:00000001 "IncludeEmptyServers"=dword:00000000 "Speed"=dword:00000004 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BrowseNewProcess] "BrowseNewProcess"="yes" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\CleanupWiz] "NoRun"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main] "AllowWindowReuse"=dword:00000000 "Anchor Underline"="hover" "Friendly http errors"="no" "NotifyDownloadComplete"="no" "Show image placeholders"=dword:00000001 "ShowGoButton"="no" "Use FormSuggest"="yes" "Use Search Asst"="no" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\WebView\BarricadedFolders] "shell:ControlPanelFolder"=dword:00000000 "shell:ProgramFiles"=dword:00000000 "shell:System"=dword:00000000 "shell:SystemDriveRootFolder"=dword:00000000 "shell:Windows"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced] "Hidden"=dword:00000001 "ShowCompColor"=dword:00000001 "HideFileExt"=dword:00000000 "DontPrettyPath"=dword:00000000 "ShowInfoTip"=dword:00000001 "HideIcons"=dword:00000000 "MapNetDrvBtn"=dword:00000000 "WebView"=dword:00000001 "Filter"=dword:00000000 "SuperHidden"=dword:00000000 "SeparateProcess"=dword:00000000 "ListviewAlphaSelect"=dword:00000001 "ListviewShadow"=dword:00000001 "ListviewWatermark"=dword:00000001 "TaskbarAnimations"=dword:00000001 "StartMenuInit"=dword:00000002 "StartButtonBalloonTip"=dword:00000002 "NoNetCrawling"=dword:00000001 "FolderContentsInfoTip"=dword:00000001 "FriendlyTree"=dword:00000000 "WebViewBarricade"=dword:00000000 "DisableThumbnailCache"=dword:00000000 "ShowSuperHidden"=dword:00000000 "ClassicViewState"=dword:00000000 "PersistBrowsers"=dword:00000000 "Start_ShowNetConn"=dword:00000002 "Start_LargeMFUIcons"=dword:00000000 "Start_MinMFU"=dword:00000000 "Start_ShowControlPanel"=dword:00000002 "Start_EnableDragDrop"=dword:00000001 "StartMenuFavorites"=dword:00000000 "Start_ShowHelp"=dword:00000000 "Start_ShowMyComputer"=dword:00000002 "Start_ShowMyDocs"=dword:00000002 "Start_ShowMyMusic"=dword:00000002 "Start_ShowMyPics"=dword:00000000 "Start_ShowPrinters"=dword:00000001 "Start_ShowRun"=dword:00000001 "Start_ScrollPrograms"=dword:00000000 "Start_ShowSearch"=dword:00000001 "Start_ShowRecentDocs"=dword:00000000 "Start_AutoCascade"=dword:00000001 "Start_NotifyNewApps"=dword:00000000 "Start_AdminToolsRoot"=dword:00000000 "StartMenuAdminTools"=dword:00000000 "TaskbarSizeMove"=dword:00000001 "TaskbarGlomming"=dword:00000001 "CascadeNetworkConnections"="YES" "EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000 "Start_ShowNetPlaces_ShouldShow"=dword:00000041 "ServerAdminUI"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel] "{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000 "{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000 "{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}"=dword:00000000 "{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}"=dword:00000000 "{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\AnimateMinMax] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ComboBoxAnimation] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\CursorShadow] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\DragFullWindows] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\DropShadow] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\FontSmoothing] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListBoxSmoothScrolling] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewAlphaSelect] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewShadow] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewWatermark] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\MenuAnimation] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\SelectionFade] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\TaskbarAnimations] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\Themes] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\TooltipAnimation] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000001 "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\WebView] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DontShowMeThisDialogAgain] "WarnBeforeCloseBand"="no" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoRecentDocsMenu"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell] "BagMRU Size"=dword:00001F40 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam] "BagMRU Size"=dword:00001F40 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoSaveSettings"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings] "MaxConnectionsPerServer"=dword:00000005 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "FontSmoothing"="2" "FontSmoothingType"=dword:00000002 [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop] "FontSmoothingType"=dword:00000002 "FontSmoothing"="2" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger] "AppSettings"=hex:02,02,01,00 "DisableTabs"=hex:01,00,00,00 "InstalledMSNCertificate"=dword:00000000 "RTCTuned"=dword:00000001 "ShowCustomEmoticons"=hex:01,00,00,00 "TaskListState"=hex:03,00,00,00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer] "IconUnderline"=hex:1C,00,00,00 "SearchSystemDirs"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\CTF\LangBar] "ShowStatus"=dword:00000003 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AutoComplete] "Append Completion"="yes" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Ftp] "Use Web Based FTP"="no" "Use PASV"="yes" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CabinetState] "FullPath"=dword:00000000 "FullPathAddress"=dword:00000001 "Use Search Asst"="no" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] "NeroFilterCheck"=- "DownloadAccelerator"=-

I searched but nothing came up about it. Also I can't find anything about setting Firefox as the default browser nor how to set DAP to be the default download accelerator (DAP isn't a valid search term).

I'm in need of this too, I'm loving it compared to MS Office 2003 and XP. So small, so fast, so neat, so free!

MSN 6.2 has been withdrawn until Monday due to a bug they found.