Experiment: Create directy on hard drive, let's call it xpgold. Insert original xpgold cd into the cd drive. Copy the cd to xpgold folder. Open Windows explorer and observe that... 1. xpgold folder and all sub directories are read only. 2. randomly check a few files, observe that read only attribute is not set. Navigate to the xpgold folder... right click Properties clear the read only attribute click Apply, in the popup select "Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files." Click OK. Windows does it thing, took my pc about 15 seconds, then brings you back to the Properties screen. Now set the read only attribute, click Apply, and in similar fashion select "Apply changes to this folder, subfolers and files." Click OK twice and close explorer. Open explorer again, check as many files as you want and observe that the read only attribute is set. Let's especially look at txtsetup.sif in the i386 directory. I notice that mine says, Modified: Thursday August 23rd 2001 7:00:00 AM and that the read only attribute is set. At this point I am satisfied that everything is read only. Now let's go to nLite (I am using 1.4.9.1) and load xpgold from the hard drive, select unattended, and do something like enter a product key, build it, and exit. Now open Windows Explorer, navigate to txtsetup.sif and... the read only attribute is cleared and the date modified is, well, today. I observe that the read only attribute is cleared on all the files. Hmmm. So...what I am trying to figure out is how to make one of my creations really "read only" so that I do not inadvertently modify it. Any ideas? Did I do something wrong? Mara... Just read your post. I wonder if there is something in gpedit that will get me where i want to go.