Pre-Login Legal Banner

[lyngate]

Hi All

Im trying to make use of wake on LAN to deploy applications over night. The problem is I have to boot up twice in order to begin the deployment process. I disable the Legal Notice and apply auto logon in the first boot (through changing registry keys), then reboot in order for the changes to take effect.

Am I right in saying I cannot use our own AutoIT GUIs and do away with the built in restrictive setup? Has anyone else come across this problem?

Ive tried to run the script below get rid of the Legal Banner however it appears that I cannot interact with the Legal window.

Any suggestions short of getting rid of the Legal Banner altogether.

Opt("WinTextMatchMode", 2)      ;1=complete, 2=quick
Opt("WinTitleMatchMode", 2)     ;1=start, 2=subStr, 3=exact, 4=advanced, -1 to -4=Nocase
AdlibEnable ("CloseBanner")

Sleep (60000)

Func CloseBanner()
    ControlFocus ( "EMAIL AND INTERNET USAGE - WARNING", "EMAIL AND INTERNET USAGE - WARNING", 1 )
    ControlClick ( "EMAIL AND INTERNET USAGE - WARNING", "EMAIL AND INTERNET USAGE - WARNING", 1 )
EndFunc

[PsaltyDS]

Save the legal notice strings from the registry and set them to "" before rebooting:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\LegalNoticeCaption
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\LegalNoticeText

Restore them after you're done.

[lyngate]

Save the legal notice strings from the registry and set them to "" before rebooting:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\LegalNoticeCaption
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\LegalNoticeText

Restore them after you're done.

Thanks for the response. I've already had some success in doing it in that way. I would like to deploy applications in one boot. You see, I have written an AutoIT script that detects if the computer booted up via magic packet or not.

[PsaltyDS]

Thanks for the response. I've already had some success in doing it in that way. I would like to deploy applications in one boot. You see, I have written an AutoIT script that detects if the computer booted up via magic packet or not.

So you run a script on the target machine to make the changes, then reboot and run a script to do the work? Plus another reboot after the work is done is three. I don't get it...

You can change those registry keys remotely, without running anything on the target box. Then force the reboot remotely, which does auto admin logon and runs your worker script (in a severely restricted shell for security reasons). The worker script cleans up behind itself by restoring the registry info.

And all that assumes you need a GUI logon. If your worker script can run silently, just schedule it remotely with SCHTASKS.EXE.

What am I missing?

[lyngate]

So you run a script on the target machine to make the changes, then reboot and run a script to do the work? Plus another reboot after the work is done is three. I don't get it...

You can change those registry keys remotely, without running anything on the target box. Then force the reboot remotely, which does auto admin logon and runs your worker script (in a severely restricted shell for security reasons). The worker script cleans up behind itself by restoring the registry info.

And all that assumes you need a GUI logon. If your worker script can run silently, just schedule it remotely with SCHTASKS.EXE.

What am I missing?

I'm Sorry for the confusion, my problem is, I have to look after over 3,000 computers across several sites. Allowing the computers to reboot twice or even three times in order to perform changes is risky. I have already developed code that supresses legal banner and employs autologon, I am now tring to find a way of deploying applications without having to do a reset.

[PsaltyDS]

I'm Sorry for the confusion, my problem is, I have to look after over 3,000 computers across several sites. Allowing the computers to reboot twice or even three times in order to perform changes is risky. I have already developed code that supresses legal banner and employs autologon, I am now tring to find a way of deploying applications without having to do a reset.

If the app doesn't need a reset, then AutoIt certainly doesn't. Use SCHTASKS.EXE to remotely schedule a task for your install. If it can be done silently, there doesn't even have to be a GUI. Where does the need for any reboots at all come from?

[tAKTelapis]

Other option is to build ghost AI packages, and deploy them via Group Policy to install on startup.

Perosnally i find that installing software this way causes more problems than good. As systems eventually become un-stable, i like to have it all in the images and just re-image.

[lyngate]

Thanks for the advice about imaging. I am exploring the possible use of Wake on LAN as an out-of-hours deployment tool. Patches and application deployment are currently done during working hours. Moving deployment to out of hours would have the benefit of curbing user discomfort.

So far in my project I have written AutoIT code that detects the fact that the computer has been switched on via Wake on LAN. The code then writes to the registry to disable the Legal Notice Banner and store Auto logon information. The computer has to have a reboot to for these changes to take effect. Applications, updates and patches are finally deployed.

I am concerned that I cannot start deployment straight away. Rebooting before deployment adds extra complications because I cannot be in front of every computer if anything goes wrong. We are talking about booting a computer up with local administrator rights.

Edited May 24, 2007 by lyngate