The ASR restore procedure is made up of two phases: Phase I (Text Mode Setup) and Phase II (GUI Mode Setup). During Phase II of the ASR restore process, there may be programs or device drivers that are required but that are not included on the Windows Product CD-ROM disk. The ASR restore process provides a mechanism to copy these additional files to the destination computer during Phase I. These files will then be available later in the restore process.
The [InstallFiles] section of the Asr.sif file contains the records that identify
the device drivers and files and the source and destination to which they are
to be copied. Programs may omit the section when they want to
specify that the device driver files are not to be copied to the destination computer.
Similarly, if the section is present, but it does not contain any records, the
drivers are not copied.
The [InstallFiles] section is not required, for example, if the device drivers that
are required by the provider program were installed during a typical
Microsoft Windows XP installation. Another example is that the recovery
program implemented a vendor-specific file copy and installation procedure that
did not have to use the semantics that were provided by the recovery device
records.
A valid [InstallFiles] section is required during Phase I if ASR is to copy the
driver files to a hard disk. A valid driver package must include the driver (.sys) and an installation file (.inf) for the driver to be installed during the Plug and Play section of Phase II. Additionally, this driver package should include a catalog file (.cat) to avoid unsigned driver warnings. All three files must be included in the [InstallFiles] section.
Alternatively, third-party drivers can be installed by using a Setup program. In this case, the Setup program itself must be included in the [InstallFiles] section.
NOTE During Phase II, ASR does not access the [InstallFiles] section.
The [InstallFiles] section must use the following syntax.
[InstallFiles]Installfile-Key=System-Key,Source-Media-Label,Source-device,Source-File-Path, Destination-File-Path, Vendor-Name, Flags
The following list is an explanation of the keys that are used in
the [InstallFiles] section:
- InstallFile-Key - Required
This value is an
integer that is more than or equal to one. This key must be unique from all
other keys in the [InstallFiles] section. Programs that add entries to the [InstallFiles] section must not generate the InstallFile-Key or the equal (=)
sign. - System Key - Required
The System Key is an
index to the [Systems] section of the Asr.sif. This value identifies what system is being restored. It must be an integer that is more than or equal to one. - Source-Media-Label - Required
The
Source-Media-Label is used to prompt the user to insert the media if the
required media is not present in the Source-Device path. This may also be referred to as the Volume Label. - Source-Device - Required
The Source-Device must
be a physical device name of the source device because the drive letters on the
destination computer are not guaranteed to be the same as that on the original
computer when the files in this section are copied. The following strings refer
to common installation media:
%FLOPPY%: For
the first floppy disk drive on the computer
(\Device\Floppy0)
%CDROM%: For the first CD
drive on the computer
(\Device\CdRom0)
%Setupsource%: For the path of
the device that contains the Setup files
For all other devices, the
full physical device path must be used. - Source-File-Path - Required
This string
identifies the full path name of the file to be copied, which is relative to
the root folder on the source media. For example, if the Driver.sys file that
is stored in the I386 subfolder on a CD-ROM must be copied, the
source file path for it is I386\Driver.sys. This string must not start with
a backslash (\) character. - Destination-File-Path - Required
This string
identifies the path and file name to which the source file must be copied.
Because the only volumes that currently are present are the boot volume and the system
volume, the destination must be in one of these volumes. Additionally, ASR will not create any folders. Therefore, you are limited to using folders that exist during this part of Setup. The
following strings refer to these folders:
%SYSTEMROOT%: The folder that
Windows is installed to.
%TEMP%: %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Temp directory that is created during Setup. For a
temporary folder.
Unless there is a specific requirement to install to
the Windows (%SYSTEMROOT%) folder, programs typically use the
%TEMP% folder.
For example, if the
Driver.sys file is copied to the System32 subfolder of the destination computer
in the Windows installation folder, the Destination-File-Path is
%SystemRoot%\System32\Driver.sys. - Vendor-Name - Required
This string is displayed
during Text Mode Setup when the user is prompted for the specified file, if
it is required. - Flags - Required
The Flags key is a combination of
one or more of the following values that enables the program to customize the
restore-time behavior:
0x00000001 - Prompt For Files Always: This
flag causes ASR to always prompt the user for the media before any attempts are
made to copy the file. This flag can be used to make sure that the file that is
being copied is from the correct media, especially if the file has a common
name, such as, Setup.exe, that may exist on some other media that is on the
drive. This flag gives the user a chance to make sure that the correct source
media is present before ASR copies the file to the destination
computer.
0x00000006 - Prompt for Required Files: This flag
indicates that this file is critical for the ASR process. ASR does not continue
unless this file is copied. This flag must only be set for the appropriate
files without which ASR cannot succeed because the user cannot perform a
successful recovery unless all these files are present.
0x00000010 -
Overwrite if File Already Exists: Specifies whether the file that is being copied
must overwrite the file at the target destination if it already exists. This
flag is ignored if the flag 0x00000001 is set.
0x00000020 - Prompt if
File Already Exists: If this flag is set, the user is prompted if the file
that is being copied already exists at the target location.
The following example shows a typical [InstallFiles] section with driver files that must be copied to the destination
computer if the computer that is identified by the "1" key in the System section is being restored.
[INSTALLFILES]
1=1,"Volume label","%FLOPPY%","driver.sys","%TEMP%\driver.sys","Vendor name",0x00000026
2=1,"Volume label","%FLOPPY%","driver.inf","%TEMP%\driver.inf","Vendor name",0x00000026
3=1,"Volume label","%FLOPPY%","driver.cat","%TEMP%\driver.cat","Vendor name",0x00000026
- The driver name of "driver" in the previous example is generic. The actual driver names will vary depending on the manufacturer.
- During the ASR restore process, there are two directories available to copy the previous drivers to: %SYSTEMROOT% and %TEMP%. It is strongly recommended that you use the %TEMP% directory instead of copying these drivers to the Windows directory.
The following example shows a typical [InstallFiles] section with a program that must be copied to the destination computer if the computer that is identified by the "1" key in the [Systems] section is being restored.
1=1,"Media label","%CDROM%","appsetup.exe","%TEMP%\appsetup.exe","Vendor name",0x00000026
The [InstallFiles] section only copies the program files to the destination computer. To run the program files application, an associated entry must be added to the [Commands] section of Asr.sif.