Handige Knakker

Maybe a bit late ….

Windows 7 offers a very handy feature called the Audit Mode. I’ve blogged about that before. This enables you to prepare the computer for the end-user, therefore it skips the whole OOBE (Out Of Box Experience) and the creation of local user accounts.
Windows XP does not have that feature so on the end of a fresh installation of Windows XP you’ll be prompted to create a user account and Windows will then automatically log in with that account. Microsoft doesn’t allow you to skip this, so you will always have to create a second local account (besides the Administrator account).

I recently found out a way to bypass this. Ok, resetting the machine does the trick also. But a more friendly way is to type SYSTEM in the first field.

Because of some issue between Windows XP and a HP 6000 Pro system, i needed to rollout a script to ~10000 clients that detected the type of system and change the boot.ini accordingly.
Microsoft’s article on this “bug”.

' Quick'n Dirty HP 6000 Pro boot.ini (/usepmtimer) changer (c) Hugo

On Error Resume Next

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FilesystemObject")
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
Set WSHProcessEnvironment = objShell.Environment("Process")

strComputerName = "."
strWinMgt = "winmgmts://" & strComputerName &""

Set ComputerSystemSet = GetObject(strWinMgt).ExecQuery("select * from Win32_ComputerSystem")
For Each objComputerSystem In ComputerSystemSet
  strComputerSystem_Model = objComputerSystem.Model
  strComputerSystem_Description = objComputerSystem.Description
Next

WScript.Echo " Found: " + strComputerSystem_Model

' Learned so far:
' - "HP Compaq 6000 Pro MT PC"
' - "HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC"
' - "HP Compaq 6000 Small Form Factor"
' - ..

Select Case strComputerSystem_Model
Case "HP Compaq 6000 Pro MT PC"
	boot_ini_aanpassen()
Case "HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC"
	boot_ini_aanpassen()
Case "HP Compaq 6000 Small Form Factor"
	boot_ini_aanpassen()
Case "blablabla pro 6000 type 4 that will be found some day or the next"
	boot_ini_aanpassen()
Case Else
	WScript.Echo " No Pro 6000 detected, exit ..."
End Select

'#########################################################################
'  support function(s)
'#########################################################################

Function boot_ini_aanpassen()
    WScript.Echo " Match found, now change boot.ini"

    ' make the file accessable
    objShell.Run "c:\windows\system32\attrib.exe -h -a -r -s c:\boot.ini"

    ' sleep for a while because it needs time to process the attribute change (10 sec will do for sure)
    WScript.Sleep(10000)

    ' define new boot.ini layout
    strMyBootIni_line1 = "[boot loader]"
    strMyBootIni_line2 = "timeout=30"
    strMyBootIni_line3 = "default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS"
    strMyBootIni_line4 = "[operating systems]"
    strMyBootIni_line5 = "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=""Microsoft Windows XP Professional"" /fastdetect /usepmtimer"

    Const WriteMode = 2 '2 = ForWrite, 8 = ForAppend
    Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    Set objTextFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile ("c:\boot.ini", WriteMode, True)
	  objTextFile.WriteLine(strMyBootIni_line1)
	  objTextFile.WriteLine(strMyBootIni_line2)
	  objTextFile.WriteLine(strMyBootIni_line3)
	  objTextFile.WriteLine(strMyBootIni_line4)
	  objTextFile.WriteLine(strMyBootIni_line5)
    objTextFile.Close

    ' re-attribute the file
    objShell.Run "c:\windows\system32\attrib.exe +h +a +r +s c:\boot.ini"

    WScript.Echo " Boot.ini changed. Active after next reboot"
End Function

If you want to know what policies are processed, how long it takes, why certain objects can’t be found etc etc, use this great app: http://www.sysprosoft.com/policyreporter.shtml

My mirror (since site is slow and sometimes down): Policy_Reporter4_2.msi

Please enable enviroment logging first, see roaming profiles and logging

If you know what it is and (also) looking for it: Bootvis

sysprep.inf:

[Identification]
    JoinDomain=DOMAIN
    DomainAdmin=sysprepadmin
    DomainAdminPassword=password
    MachineObjectOU="OU=Desktops,OU=Machines,DC=Domain,DC=local"

XP or 2003 rktools gives you version XP010. There is a newer version, but hard to find.
Here’s XP026, the latest that’ll run on XP (Vista and up have 027 embedded but won’t run on XP).

robocopy.exe

Another happy customer due to the following registry hack:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"RasDisable"="1"

aka

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v RasDisable /t REG_SZ /d "1" /f

Having problems with sending mail?
You might want to try to simulate a smtp session to see what goes wrong exactly.

Start a msdos prompt and type:

C:\WINDOWS>telnet smtp.xs4all.nl 25

Your smtp may be different offcourse.

Trying 194.109.6.51...
Connected to smtp.xs4all.nl.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 smtp-vbr11.xs4all.nl ESMTP Sendmail 8.13.8/8.13.8; Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:03:50 +0200 (CEST)

Type “helo” followed by your domain

   helo bogusdomain.nl
250 smtp-vbr11.xs4all.nl Hello xxxxxxxxx [a.b.c.d], pleased to meet you

Type “mail from:” followed by your email address

   mail from:hugo@bogusdomain.nl
250 2.1.0 hugo@bogusdomain.nl... Sender ok

Type “rcpt to:” followed by your email address

   rcpt to:hugo@bogusdomain.nl
553 5.3.0 hugo@bogusdomain.nl... Relaying denied,Authenticate with your username and password first

Now we see what is wrong here. This server doesn’t allow me to relay.
Type “quit” to exit.

   quit
221 2.0.0 smtp-vbr11.xs4all.nl closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

If you didn’t get an error after “rcpt-to:”, continue with:

250 2.1.5 Ok
   data
354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
   hello hugo

   .
250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 60D2A4A24A

  quit
221 2.0.0 Bye

Mail should arrive now.

How to make sure your client is in the right timezone and synchs with your preferred ntp server?

Control.exe TIMEDATE.CPL,,/Z (GMT+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlijn, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Wenen
net time /setsntp:ntp.xs4all.nl
net time /querysntp
w32tm /Resync

Event viewer nicely logs the resync action:

Type gebeurtenis: Informatie
Bron van gebeurtenis: W32Time
Categorie van gebeurtenis: Geen
Gebeurtenis-ID: 35
Datum: 12-8-2009
Tijd: 10:04:10
Gebruiker: n.v.t.
Computer: HUGO7900SSF
Beschrijving:
De tijdservice is nu bezig met het synchroniseren van de systeemtijd met de tijdbron ntp.xs4all.nl (ntp.m|0×1|10.0.11.76:123->194.109.22.18:123).

Zie Help en ondersteuning op http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp voor meer informatie.

If you want to make changes to the registry for the “default user” there is one BIG misunderstanding that i want to clarify here.

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT is NOT the Default User!

This is actually the registry for the Local System account. Changes in this hive will be applyed before a user logs in.
A clear example: when making the following change:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="C:\Windows\mywallpaper.bmp"

the background called “mywallpaper.bmp” will be loaded onto the background while pressing ctrl+alt+del and entering your credentials. (e.g. this is how Dell or HP use their own backgrounds on a pre-installed system).

Ok so how do you make changes to the default user?

It’s actually pretty simple.
As you should know the registry for a user is placed in a file called ntuser.dat in the %userprofile% directory. Therefor, in c:\documents and settings\Default User you’ll find the registry for the default user (doh!).

Now load this file as a temporary hive to enabled making changes to it.
Start a dos prompt. Then type:

reg load HKU\Temp "c:\documents and settings\Default User\NTUSER.DAT"

Start regedit and go to HKEY_USERS\Temp and you’ll see the registry for the default user.
Make the desired changes. When done, close regedit to avoid locking issues and back in your dos prompt type:

reg unload HKU\Temp

And you’re done!
New users without existing profile will inherit the Default User profile and therefor inherit the changes you just made.

“Ok one question though, why not use (domain) policies for such purposes?”
Good question. Policies will always be a better solution because changes to the policies will automatically be applied to existing user profiles and changes to the default user profile will only be used when a user logs in and the user has no existing profile.
There are, however, settings that can not be changed from (domain) policies (at least not in current Windows versions…). Examples:

• Power management (screensaver, disks going to stand-by), etc
• Schemes for audio/sounds
• (one of my favorites) Quick Launch behaviour (e.g. the number of items, the locked status, etc)
• … etc!

Conclusion
Now you know how to edit the default user registry.
Think about making these changes when preparing an image that you’re going to deploy to a network. Or at least apply the changes to the clients before all users are going to log in!