Resetting Harware Detection

Hi,

for a school with about 60 Systems (inhomognous) I have created a master
system based on Windows98. before imaging I want to reset the
hardware-information.

There is a RegKey that can be set and Win98 forgets everything and starts
from scratch with the detection. The person who knows the key is on vacation,
but I need it asap. It is not "CurrentVersion\SetupFlags" !!!

If anyone knows this key, please answer!

BR.
Matthias

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum
--
Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

"Matthias" Matthias @discussions.microsoft.com wrote in message
...
Hi,

for a school with about 60 Systems (inhomognous) I have created a master
system based on Windows98. before imaging I want to reset the
hardware-information.

There is a RegKey that can be set and Win98 forgets everything and starts
from scratch with the detection. The person who knows the key is on
vacation,
but I need it asap. It is not "CurrentVersion\SetupFlags" !!!

If anyone knows this key, please answer!

BR.
Matthias

Hi,

I am not sure that this is the key I am looking for, but I gave it a try.

I deleted the whole enum-tree in the VirtualPC-W98. The system complained
about misconfigured graphics adapter and after a series of "enter" the
hardware detection started. In the background the loading of the desktop
continued.

Should I use that with "SetupFlags" (increasing the first byte by 1) to
start the detection automatically?

Any other hints?

BR.
Matthias

There was no mention of Virtual PC in your initial post. There are enough
differences between the way that virtual W98 and regular W98 systems work
that I would be hesitant to take any shortcuts. I have both on this machine
and virtual detected the graphics card on its own (not sure how that
works--maybe it piggy backed off from XP?) while the regular required the
manual update of the driver. An old printer and scanner will work on the
regular W98 load by not on the virtual load.

Wiping out ENUM wipes out all the hardware information and the system can
hopefully detect the hardware at the next boot. This is a shortcut that
doesn't always work right and I would not use it but then I don't maintain
60 different computers and maybe I would change my mind if I did. I don't
know the flag answer.

For what it's worth, as an experiment, I took a hard drive out of one PC and
put it in another with completely different hardware. I have done this
four times with different computers involved. I did not wipe out ENUM and
surprisingly to me (I had been told it would not work), the hardware
detected and the PCs worked correctly. I don't know what would have
happened had I used the systems for a length of time--maybe severe problems
would have ensued.

--
Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

"Matthias" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I am not sure that this is the key I am looking for, but I gave it a try.

I deleted the whole enum-tree in the VirtualPC-W98. The system complained
about misconfigured graphics adapter and after a series of "enter" the
hardware detection started. In the background the loading of the desktop
continued.

Should I use that with "SetupFlags" (increasing the first byte by 1) to
start the detection automatically?

Any other hints?

BR.
Matthias

"Ron Badour" wrote:

There was no mention of Virtual PC in your initial post.

That was just for a quick test

I don't know the flag answer.

too bad...

For what it's worth, as an experiment, I took a hard drive out of one PC and
put it in another with completely different hardware. I have done this
four times with different computers involved. I did not wipe out ENUM and
surprisingly to me (I had been told it would not work), the hardware
detected and the PCs worked correctly. I don't know what would have
happened had I used the systems for a length of time--maybe severe problems
would have ensued.

This is what we did til now (take an image and push it to the next machine)
but we always had to add some drivers manually, and esp the new drivers for
the motherboard were most difficult. I now added the drivers in advance and
hope to get better results.

I will do some tests

Matthias wrote:

"Ron Badour" wrote:

There was no mention of Virtual PC in your initial post.

That was just for a quick test

I don't know the flag answer.

too bad...

For what it's worth, as an experiment, I took a hard drive out of one PC and
put it in another with completely different hardware. I have done this
four times with different computers involved. I did not wipe out ENUM and
surprisingly to me (I had been told it would not work), the hardware
detected and the PCs worked correctly. I don't know what would have
happened had I used the systems for a length of time--maybe severe problems
would have ensued.

This is what we did til now (take an image and push it to the next machine)
but we always had to add some drivers manually, and esp the new drivers for
the motherboard were most difficult. I now added the drivers in advance and
hope to get better results.

I will do some tests

One thing you might care to try:

On the master installation, set up a second hardware profile ... this
can be anything, just make it a direct copy of the existing profile.
This forces Windows to ask, at boot time, which profile you wish to
use. Obligingly, it also gives you the option (roughly translated)
"none of the above".

If you select this latter option, it doesn't have a hardware profile
to run with so it will proceed to redetect all the hardware on the
system it finds itself in. Once you are up and running, you can then
delete the original two profiles.

I've always preferred this method, over registry surgery, when
changing motherboards since no data is deleted and, if you run into
serious trouble (new MB has a problem etc) you can re-install the
original MB with no trouble because its profile is retained. It may
help in your situation too.

I'd also suggest, when using this method, that you eliminate the most
troublesome drivers before making the switch ... i.e. the video driver
(switch to generic windows video driver) and sound driver (remove).
Probably paranoia actually, since the hardware redetection should take
care of it, but it doesn't take much.