Tablet PC Hotfix for "Welcome to Microsoft Windows Setup Wizard" (OOBE)

Readme File

January 2003
© Microsoft Corporation, 2003. All rights reserved.

This hotfix is designed to resolve the lack of on-screen keyboard and pen support during the Welcome to Microsoft Windows Setup Wizard (OOBE) phase of Setup. Prior to this fix, hardware keyboards had to be attached to Tablet PCs during first boot in order to complete the Windows OOBE Setup. The hotfix will be provided to all OEMs shipping Tablet PC systems.

The steps required to use this hotfix are described in this document. These steps are:

Installing the Hotfix

To install the hotfix:

Run the Setup program that Microsoft provided (Q811393_Xpt_Sp2_x86_Enu.exe).

The Setup program for this hotfix installs the following files:

Tabsrv.exe
Softkbd.exe

The files are installed by default into the %Windir%\System32 directory, where %Windir% is the environment variable containing the location of the system's Windows directory.

Enabling the Input Panel On-Screen Keyboard for the Windows OOBE

To use the Input Panel on-screen keyboard during the Windows OOBE:
(This usage requires the Sysprep utility.)

On the computer that will have the Sysprep image, install the hotfix to copy the necessary Input Panel and Pen service files to %Windir%\system32.
Add the following line as the last item of the "[OEMRunOnce]" section in the file Winbom.ini:

"Load SoftKeyboard for OOBE","c:\%windir%\system32\tabsrv /install"
Save the file.

Additional Resources

For more information on Sysprep and other deployment resources, see the following Knowledge Base articles:

302577.KB.EN-US How to: Use Sysprep.exe Tool to Automate Successful Deployment of Windows XP

299840.KB.EN-US How to: Use Sysprep with Windows Product Activation or Volume License Media to Deploy Windows XP

282190.KB.EN-US Description of New Features in Sysprep for Windows XP

For a more detailed explanation about the Sysprep process, answer files, and valid parameter values, please refer to the help files in the \Support\Tools\Deploy.cab folder on CD1 of the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition media set.