How to do a unattended install of xp inside.

[x]

Dear all

Got this of another newsgroupits cool.

Something else I've been playing with is getting Whistler to do a full
unattended install. It's very easy to make it all work.

On the original CD is a file called \SupportTools\DEPLOY.CAB, which contains
a tool called SETUPMGR.EXE. You run it, and it asks simple questions about
what defaults would like for the installation. When it gets to the bit about
"distribution folder", tell it "No, will be used to install from a CD".

It will try to save the finished file as UNATTEND.TXT, but rename this to
WINNT.SIF. This creates an answer file, a little like the MSBATCH.INF file
we used to use back in Win9x.

If you want to, you can drop this into the i386 directory and make a new CD,
but there's a simpler way to use it. Copy it to a floppy and boot off the
CD. A few seconds into Setup (just after it says it is detecting new
hardware) it will read the file off the floppy and use those instructions to
guide the installation.

And that's all there is to making Whistler self-install.

Oops, I forgot to include something very important, something which was the
whole point of trying to get a fully automated install in the first place:
the Product Key!

Once you've created WINNT.SIF, you can add your Product Key in the
[UserData} section like this:

ProductID=???????????????????
That will then accomplish what SETUPP.INI used to do in previous Windows
versions.

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Yes, that's really a great feature. I always hate typing in the CD key for some perverse
reason<g>. I did make a few mistakes the first time I tried that. Whatever you Don't
stipulate in the answer file uses the 'default' setting. My mistake was that I wanted it
installed on D Drive, and the default is C, but there might be a number if things like that
to look into.
People would want to read the help file in that CAB file that will show how to avoid
things like my 'wrong drive' mistake.

The minute I think I have this stuff 'down' something rises up to bite me on the ....<g>
Maybe next build I'll learn better.:/

--
Mark L. Ferguson
marfe...@hotmail.com
<x> wrote in message news:Oi6PhkD0AHA.1256@tkmsftngp02...

[Andrej Budja [MVP]]

This is nice, but was available way before XP :)

Andrej

[x]

I know but its still cool.

x
"Andrej Budja [MVP]" <andrej...@no-spam-please.bigfoot.com> wrote in
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[Andrej Budja [MVP]]

Sure :)

Andrej

[Larry]

Yes, the same procedures apply to Windows 2000.

-Larry

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