Installation Tips

Installing WindowsME Without a Previous OS Win95 SETUP switches Creating a Network Install Tab Installing Windows95 OEM SR2 over an existing version of Windows Office95 Upgrade Without Existing Version Upgrading Without a Previous Version of Windows Installed Automating Office95 Installations Installing Windows95 with no Plug and Play search Installing Windows95 with no MSN or InBox Icons New Win95 Batch Install Program Installing WindowsME Without a Previous OS You can install WindowsME without having a previous operating system installed. You just need to have a pervious version's CD available. I recommend copying the source files to the hard drive and installing from there. When you are prompted for a previous operating system, simply insert your Windows95/98 CD and browse to the directory where the source files are located. You can then continue installing on a clean system without having to install aprevious version. This should save a lot of time in the event you need to reinstall WindowsME from scratch. Setup Switches There are several switches that can be used when running SETUP SETUP Switches There are several switches available to use along with SETUP. Some are undocumented. filename Runs the particular INF file /ID Ignores the DIsk Space check /IS Ignores the routine System check /IQ Skips the test for cross-linked files /IM Skips the memory check /IN Runs setup without the Network Setup Module /IW Bypasses needing to read the License screen. Needs to be upper case when run within Windows Undocumented. /IP Ignores Plug and Play Undocumented /IR By passes the checkin into the system CMOS. Useful for some combinations of motherboard and Award BIOS ver 4.50 P Undocumented /D If you do not want Setup to use your existing Windows configuration (such as your current Win.ini and System.ini files), use this switch. Undocumented /N Allows setup to run without a mouse Undocumented /NTLDR Eliminates check for previous operating system. /P Detection Switch Option String - Using a /P allows you to use an additional switch for viewing and setting some detection parameters. You can separate them with a semicolon (;). For example /P g=3;i;p. g=0 to 3 - This switch controls how verbose the built-in progress bar is. At maximum level (3), it shows all the resources of the detected devices along with the progress bar. This switch can help to identify which detection module causes a certain problem. The default is 0. b - This switch enables Prompt Before mode. It prompts you before a detection module is called so that you can step through each detection module manually and decide if you want to skip it. The default is disabled. i - This switch tells Setup not to report the existence of a Plug and Play BIOS. It is useful on systems that have a Plug and Play BIOS that is not reported in Machine.inf. p - This switch enables performance logging. It writes performance timing information to the DETLOG.TXT file.The default is disabled. f - This switch enables Clean Registry mode. It forces Detection to clean the root branch of the registry before starting. This switch is ignored when Setup is run in the Windows 95 graphical user interface (GUI). The default is disabled. Creating a Network Install Tab You can create a Network Install tab that will show up in the Control Panel / Add/Remove Program icon.This will allow you to centrally control applications that users can easily install over a network. There are two parts to setting this up: Configuring the file with the applications that can be installed Configurating the workstation to look for this file Configuring the APPS.INI File The file that controls what applications can be installed is called APPS.INI. A sample is: [AppInstallList] Microsoft Word=\\server\share\apps\word\setup.exe Microsoft Excel=\\server\share\apps\excel\setup.exe On the left hand side is the name that will appear to the user in the Network Install tab. On the right hand side would be your location for the install program. No DOS paths are allowed. Only UNC names will work This file should be put on a network server. This way when it needs to be modified, it can be done in one location. Configuring the Workstation Start Regedit Go to HKEY_Local_Machine / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion Add a String Value called AppInstallPath Its value should be a DOS or UNC path to the location of the APPS.INI file, including the file name Now when users open up the Control Panel / Add/Remove Programs icon, there will be a Network Install tab with the programs you specify. This can be usefully for allowing people to automatically update virus definition files, printer drivers, install applications etc. Installing Windows95 OEM SR2 over an existing version of Windows Currently, you cannot install the new OEM version of Windows95 over and existing version of Windows (3.x or 95). In order to get around this problem, simply rename any WIN.COM file on your hard drive and install normally. This will let you keep you current Windows settings. It will make things easier if the location of your new version is the same as your old one. Note: You will not be able to convert to FAT32 using this procedure. For that you need to FDISK your hard drive. Office95 Upgrade Without Existing Version To install office 95 upgrade version you need to own another Office like application like WordPerfect or something right ? Wrong !! When setup goes to find an application to upgrade from just point it to the EXCEL directory on the office CD and you're off... Automated Office95 Installation There are several undocumented switches you can use to automate your Office95 Installation. An full unattended install should only take 3-4 minutes from the CD. /K Enters the CD key /K "12345678" The CD key should not have the dash /Q 0 - Quiet Install - with Exit screen 1 - No exit screen T - Shows nothing on the screen during install /N User's Name /N "Name" /O Organization Name /O "Org" /T Specify the STF file The default is the SETUP.STF on the root of the Office95 CD. This is an ASCII text file you can copy to a local or network drive, modify the applications you want to install and then point your installation to use that file /T X:\NEW.STF /U Uninstalls all apps but leaves common files in place /UA Uninstalls all apps and removes common files /R ReInstalls previously installed Office95 apps A whole string might look something like: SETUP /K "12345678" /Q1 /N "YOUR_NAME" /O "YOUR_ORGANIZATION" T: C:\NEW.STF Other Windows applications use similar STF file structure. You could have this launch automatically at the end of your Windows95 installation if you are using INF files. Installing Windows95 and Ignoring Plug and Play If you want to install Windows95 and have it not test for any Plug and Play devices, simply add a /PI after the SETUP command. Installing Win95 with no MSN or InBox Icons If you want to install Windows95 and not have it create the MSN or Exchange InBox every time you need to create a setup INF file. Instructions for doing this can be found later in this section under Batch Install Program Having created an INF file you want to use, add the following lines to remove both icons during installation: [msn.remove] setup.ini,desktop,,%Setup_MSN_DESC%,MSNEXCH.EXE %Setup_MSN_DESC% [Install] UpdateINIs= msn.remove DelReg=NoInbox_Icon [strings] Setup_MSN_DESC="Set Up The Microsoft Network" [NoInbox_Icon] HKLM,SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\ "{00020D76-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}" Upgrading Without a Previous Version of Windows Installed If you purchased the upgrade version of Windows95 but don't have a previous version installed, normally you cannot install it. If you need to install Windows 95 Upgrade on your computer and you no longer have Windows 3.1, you can simply create the following file on your hard disk: WIN386.EXE and the Upgrade version will then install. The easiest way to create this file is to type the following at the command prompt: ECHO [some random characters] > WIN386.EXE Another way to Upgrade without a Previous Version of Windows Installed If you are a Windows 95 "UPGRADE" user and you must reinstall Windows 95 for any reason, you don't need to have a copy of Windows 3.x installed on your computer first. Just place the first Win 3.1 disk into your drive and during the install of Windows95 it will find the necessary files. Batch Install Program If you are re-installing Win95 and use the same settings and programs each time, there is a Batch Installation program in the Admin\Nettools\Netsetup directory on the CD or download it fromVersion 2.0 You can specify what applications, network, protocol etc. to load when you install Win95. Save the file, then run SETUP FILENAME.INF when you re-install Win95. . You won't be prompted for much else