When creating an unattended installations of Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Exceed does not seem to work correctly when applied as a SysDiff. Here are the steps to take to see the problem:

1. start with a fresh install of NT 4.0 Wrkst
2. Ran Sysdiff /snap
3. Installed Exceed
4. Exceed rebooted the machine when it was finished tuning the install. Tested Exceed with multiple user accounts on NT including Administrator
5. Ran Sysdiff /diff
6. Copied the diff file to the server
7. Wiped the hard disk on the NT 4.0 Wrkst
8. Reinstalled NT 4.0
9. Ran Sysdiff /apply /m exceed.diff
10. Rebooted
11. When testing the Exceed install the Administrators account works fine with Xstart and all other Exceed apps but, any other user that logs in is not able to run Xstart or any other app that uses files in the c:\program files\exceed.nt\user directory.

RESOLUTION

This is a problem with SysDiff, not with our Exceed product, as confirmed by R&D.

The root of the problem is that SysDiff does not record the registry tree HKEY_USERS, ergo the subtree HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT which contains the settings that are copied to HKEY_CURRENT_USER upon login are not available to any user but the administrator (Note that administrator is OK because HKEY_CURRENT_USER _is_ processed by SysDiff).

The problem is solved by creating a file, say Hum60.reg, which contains the export of the subtree HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Hummingbird from the administrator account, after a proper installation of Exceed 6.0. Double clicking this file after an installation using SysDiff cures the Xstart problem.