Software Deployment

Haven't tried, but i am sure that if you repackage you will still requre the CD for cd checks. I guess you could go the route of a no-cd .exe update and that should do it, most copy protection is on the actual media itself, It makes you wonder if the game companies have even taken this into account as far as copy protection? Take Return to castle wolfenstein for example, needs a cdkey but does not have a cd check built in, do you think that repackaging would get the cdkey as well, I do... but should we really be opening THIS can of worms on THIS forum?

I not saying to deploy to world, just for your own general use (rebuilding your home machine, etc.). It makes it alot easier to install your games.......[8|]

Hey rberntso. You play TA? And if so where at? I play it regularly on the Zone. Btw, not a bad idea. Could save alot of trouble having to reinstall all those extra units and patches.

I like repackaging games. I have my Counter Strike in msi format with all of the patches installed and it saves me ages and fits on 1 cd so its easy to take to lans if I want to.

Funny enough, I was thinking about doing this yesterday. As my new pc died, so I thought wouldnt it be easier to snap my games. As rberntso said, it would be hell of a lot easier to install the games with the patches. I will have to give it a go on Championship Manager and SOF2.

Most games dont alter settings that are anywhere near tricky so they are easy to capture.

Also its good if you capture them to make sure they sont try to overwrite system files because games developers dont trap that sort of stuff...they just plow in files to System32 willy nilly....I like to trap that sort of stuff personally.

Yeah, I can't get enough of Total Annihilation..... I managed to create an msi for a clean install and each mod (taucp,etc.). Takes up alot of space, but it is definitely worth it...

...then ...maybe I can setup a domain controller at home...and group policy and...RIS...then the rebuild of my machine would be completley automated.

I guess this could save time, but i have gotten past the days of rebuilding every three months.

Chad, you know what I have done here.

I format my disk and install XP with NTFS.....but I leave say 20 gig of the drive unformatted. After the install I add patches and maybe Office.

Then I open disk mangement and format the second partition as FAT32.

Then boot off a DOS disk with Ghost on it.

The FAT32 partition becomes the C Drive but ghost can see the NTFS partition so I image the NTFS partition to the FAT32 partition and make an image file of it.

Then I install all my crap and when I'm happy with it.....I image it again as a new image.

Now I have 2 images.....one clean and one with full setup.

If my machine acts up I just boot off the floppy and reimage back down and I'm up and running again in 10 mins.....fully loaded with the last clean image or even a blank XP image.

You could always create a sysprep image of your XP install and then image the disk, but that is the same thing.

ORIGINAL: MSIMaker

Chad, you know what I have done here.

I format my disk and install XP with NTFS.....but I leave say 20 gig of the drive unformatted. After the install I add patches and maybe Office.

Then I open disk mangement and format the second partition as FAT32.

Then boot off a DOS disk with Ghost on it.

The FAT32 partition becomes the C Drive but ghost can see the NTFS partition so I image the NTFS partition to the FAT32 partition and make an image file of it.

Then I install all my crap and when I'm happy with it.....I image it again as a new image.

Now I have 2 images.....one clean and one with full setup.

If my machine acts up I just boot off the floppy and reimage back down and I'm up and running again in 10 mins.....fully loaded with the last clean image or even a blank XP image.


Hi MSIMaker,

You have to give me some tips on how to do this, sound like a great idea.

I need to format and clean up my pc shortly

that the way...
i always do it like this...

packaging pc , games pc etc....

What do people do when a game requires a CD to play ?

MSIMAKER stay away from the fat32 :-) it will make you fat....

ghost 8 supports dumping to NTFS... yay...
I would suggest the following....
Go here and download bart pe
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#download
Then find your self a copy of ghost pe edition.... (its 32 bit based).
Then put the ghost files in the pre created ghost dir that pe makes... then enable Ghost in the PE builder UI.
Rip ur xp cd... to make PE... and ur done.

Now boot with it (it loads the PE os in memory).
And ghost ur primary ntfs to ur logical ntfs drive....

Msg me if you have any questions.....
I use to go down the fat32 way but found it pain to keep a legacy format.