Get Windows XP to install ITSELF!!! Unattended instal

[DimViesel]

I have taken a look at the scripted installation/non-attended install feature for Win XP, anyone have any tips for this ?
All experience & pointers appreciated.

[Daniel ~]

Mooky has worked his way through this, he's offered us a FAQ as soon as he has time.

[mookydooky]

Dim, how far do you want to go with this? Do you just want to install WinXP? And only with default settings? If that's all you need to do, it's not very difficult and I could post something later tonight. Right before my trip, I was working on an unattended install that will install all the programs I normally use in addition to making a bunch of registry tweaks. So far, my unattended WinXP install disk is a little over 2.1GB on a DVD.

EDIT: Currently, my WinXP disk will install the following unattended:

WinXP (SP2), Office2003 (SP1), Frontpage2003 (SP1), nForce2 drivers, nVidia video drivers, SI3112 drivers (I don't have to hit F6 to load it on the install), ZoneAlarm Suite, Ad-Aware, and a bunch of registry tweaks. I'm still working on the registry tweaks as they're not all working correctly yet. I'll have it figured out soon enough though. I think I'm having the tweaks done too early in the install and Windows is setting them all back to defaults.

[mookydooky]

Here's all you need to create a basic unattended install disk.

First, you need to slipstream SP2. To do that you need to download SP2. You can get it from here:

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...35-SP2-ENU.exe

Next, you need the XP boot file which you can find below.

Then, copy all the contents of your current Windows XP disk to a folder.

Now you're gonna do the slipstreaming. There are many ways to do this but, the following is the way I did it because I found it to be the easiest.

1) Create a shortcut to the WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe file.
2) Right click to select the shortcut's properties.
3) Where you see "target," AFTER the quotation mark, insert a space and then the following:

-s:PATH TO THE FOLDER WHERE YOU COPIED THE CONTENTS OF YOUR WINDOWS XP CD

It should look something like this:

"C:\WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe" -s:C:\WinXPSP2

4) Click OK to close the Properties box and then run the shortcut.

5) After a couple of minutes, you should get a message saying "Integrated install has completed successfully."

6) That's it for slipstreaming SP2 into your disk

BURNING THE SLIPSTREAMED DISK

You burn the CD with either Nero or Roxio. I use Nero and when you load up the "New Compiliation" window, select either CD-ROM (boot) or DVD-ROM (boot) depending on your preference.

At the "Boot" tab, select the radio box that says "Image File." Browse to where you downloaded and unzipped the xpboot.bin file.

Below, where it says "Enable Expert Settings," make sure the box is checked.

Select the following:

Kind of emulation - No Emulation
Boot Message - Whatever you want
Load Segment of sectors 07C0 (leave as it is)
Number of loaded sectors - 4 (make sure to change this to 4 or it won't boot)

Click "New."

Select everything in the folder with the SP2 slipstreamed WinXP and move it to the items to burn side.

Burn the disk.

[mookydooky]

Now to make the unattended install disk.

You need the XP SP2 Deployment tools which can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

To make this easier, I'm just going to tell you what I did.

1) Create a folder in C: called WinXPSP2 and copy all the contents of your slipstreamed SP2 disk or folder if you still have it from making the disk.

2) Create the following folders in WinXPSP2:

C:\WinXPSP2\$OEM$\$1\Install\
C:\WinXPSP2\$OEM$\$1\Drivers\

3) Next, you need to create an answer file for all those annoying questions WinXP asks you during the install.

3a) Extract the .cab file you downloaded from MS. Double click on setupmgr.exe to run the program. The whole thing is wizard based so it's pretty simple. First, select, "Create new," click next, then "Unattended setup," click next, select your version of Windows, click next, select "Fully automated," click next, select "Set up from a CD,"

3b) Then go through the wizard and fill in the boxes and answer the questions. At the "Browser and shell settings," leave it as "Use default Internet Explorer Settings."

3c) When you finish, it will create a file called "unattend.txt." Rename it to "winnt.sif"

4) If you plan on using unattended install for other programs and stuff in the future, you need to add the following switches in the winnt.sif file under [Unattended]. You can edit the winnt.sif file with notepad.

[Unattended]
OemPreinstall=Yes
UnattendSwitch="yes"

5) Right now, the install is rigged to automatically partition the whole disk by itself. If you want to control the partition process, add the following to their proper places in the winnt.sif file

[Data]
AutoPartition=0

[Unattended]
FileSystem=*

6) Stick the winnt.sif file in the C:\WinXPSP2\I386\ folder.

7) Burn the disk.

[mookydooky]

If you frequently end up re-installing Windows on the same machine because of bad overclocks and such, the following can save you some headache with reactivation. On your already activated install, find the WPA.DBL. file. It should be under C:\Windows\System32.

Create the following folders:

C:\WinXPSP2\$OEM$\$$\System32

Stick the WPA.DBL fine in that folder. After the install, Windows will ask you to activate. If you click OK and the hardware profile hasn't changed, it should note that's it's already been activated. I'm not 100% sure if this will work since I haven't implemented it, but I'm pretty sure it's good to go.

[mookydooky]

The above is a basic guide to an unattended WinXP install. If you do the above correctly, you should just be able to to stick the disk in, walk away, and come back an hour later with WinXP installed on your machine. I'm currently working on a much more comprehensive guide that will include various programs and registry tweaks. Since I'm not home right now and I don't have access to the stuff I normally do, it'll be a couple of weeks before I can work on it. I want to be able to just stick the DVD into a new machine, walk away, come back an hour or so later, with everything installed and set the way I want it to be without me having to do anything else. I want the whole machine good to go. BTW, there are also ways to include documents. If you're migrating to a new machine, that might be a good way to also include various documents you need to take with you to the new machine. You can also include various logos and messages.

You can also load all the drivers you will ever need. Windows will automatically detect hardware and install only the drivers you need, so you don't have to worry about installing both nVidia and ATI video drivers when you only need one. Same thing with loading nForce drivers. If you're doing the install on a non-nForce machine, the hardware detection will recognize it and not install those drivers. Just because you have excess drivers on the disk, the install won't necessarily install all of them, only the ones that are necessary for the current hardware.

It's also possible to run various programs before the install if you need that done also. An example would be the install package for Catalyst Drivers. It seems a lot of guys are having trouble getting the Cats to install correctly without running the whole package. Another example would be Office. The Office installation package has to be run, but it, like WinXP, can also be automated. Which is sweet.

If you want to be able to do any of the above, you will probably need a DVD burner. CD runs out of space real quick. If you want to install anything large, like Office, then you will have to burn it into a DVD. I think there might be ways to do it over multiple CD's, but if you have to hang around to change CD's, that half defeats the purpose of having an unattended install.

One final thing, I've tested my disk several times now, with the exception of the registry tweaks which I'm still working on, everything installs perfectly. ZA Suite even contains all my preferences and info so I don't have to answer all the stupid "Allow" and "Deny" questions all over again. To get everything set, it will be an investment of several hours, but if anybody out there does frequent installs, this is a godsend and a real timesaver.

[Snakedriver]

Found this free autostream program:
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/12/2/12-2-183.shtml
Maybe worth a try.
snakedriver

[DimViesel]

Jesus Mooky thank you greatly for the effort!
I hope this is not going to be redundant 'one time' effort & that you will be able to use these posts/work as the basis of your guide.

Thanks. I will certainly work through it & see if there is anything of use I can add to the work in return.
I haven't read through & so could be asking impertinently - can other office suite installs be automated (OO.org, Star, Ability, Easy) or would this belong to the set of 3rd party software installs & so not a question of beign MS installation issue?

[kellamne]

http://www.msfn.org/ ( http://unattended.msfn.org/ )
I have had a look at his site to get ideas - still experimenting as yet.

Just 1 query - is it legal to store the WPA code>>>if it works? as surely if you built identical systems this could be deployed onto all of them without issues - or am i missing something??

[Gizmo]

Even though the TYPE of hardware won't have changed (type of CPU, amount and type of ram, type of NIC, etc) there will be identifiers on the hardware (such as the MAC address and the CPU ID) that will have changed. Most likely, you will still be asked to enter your activation code.

[DimViesel]

Hey all,
I have found some pages that give some info on remote unattended(?) installs & slipstreamed installation discs. I have found alot more but these are some of the ones I am looking @ at the moment; needless to say I like to look at quite a bit of the theory & background to something before I undertake it.

Remote Installation Services (I realise that this seems to be like a step futher an unattended install as this seems to be an unattended install via network, where infact if the machine has wake-on-lan feature activated you could power it up & install it from a remote location (in theory). However some of the concepts may apply to unattended installs.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...lt_topnode.htm

The Open Source equivalent of above:
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

Also found a page on "Making a Bootable Windows 2000 CD with Service Pack Integrated" I know not quite what the thread is about - but then all being NT kernel OSs you may find some similarities or indeed key differences that may help those still interested in Win2K before XP:
http://old.bink.nu/bootcd/

BTW mooky.. 'watchu' sayin' (Willis!? !?)'
in this thread & the AOL 'Problem Installing AOL Plz help' thread, in this same 'OS, Software, Firmware, and BIOS' forum, seem to contradictory in as far as - this thread focuses on making installs painless, & the other where registry deftness is proposed to avoid having to do a re-install - so I can only conclude that you install XP on a lot of new systems? Or have to rely on this when at work but have not done a re-install on your home machine in years.. ?

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by DimViesel

BTW mooky.. 'watchu' sayin' (Willis!? !?)'
in this thread & the AOL 'Problem Installing AOL Plz help' thread, in this same 'OS, Software, Firmware, and BIOS' forum, seem to contradictory in as far as - this thread focuses on making installs painless, & the other where registry deftness is proposed to avoid having to do a re-install - so I can only conclude that you install XP on a lot of new systems? Or have to rely on this when at work but have not done a re-install on your home machine in years.. ?

I like the Willis quote. Haven't seen Diff'rent Strokes in ages. Anyway, I haven't done a reinstall on my personal main machine in 3 years since WinXP first came out. Same thing with my main work machine. It's such a drag to have to reinstall all apps and stuff like that. My kids machines on the other hand, are another story entirely. They mess up stuff on a regular basis. That's why now their machines all have Ad-aware and ZA Suite. I also look over my friend's machines. His employees tend to mess stuff up over time. As a favor, I go over once in a while and fix stuff. I also build all the machines he uses in his office. Lately, it seems that he needs a new one every couple of months. In return, he buys me stuff. If I want a DVD burner, I'll just add it on to his order and keep it. New, CPU, same thing. New mobo, same deal. He also agrees to run FAH on all his machines, but I get the feeling that his employees mess around with stuff and delete it.

Now that I have most of the unattended WinXP disk made, it's much easier to do stuff for my kids and my friend. Before I burn the DVD, I just REM out the entries in the winnt.sif file that don't need to be installed. I don't have to baby sit the machine for 2 hours like before. When the install's finished, the disk just gets put away and it's all over. The best part, I have to admit, is I don't have to play the floppy drive shuffle anymore to install on SATA drives. I have just one floppy drive I used to move around to install drivers, but since I made the customized disk, I don't need that anymore.

[DimViesel]

Interesting Mookster.
I guess that you will have heard of RIS (- Remote Installation Services) ?
Can you (or anyone else comment on whether this, as I suspected, is ... 'like a step futher to an unattended install as this seems to be an unattended install via network, where infact if the machine has wake-on-lan feature activated you could power it up & install it from a remote location (in theory).' & if even if it was/wasn't that 'some of the concepts [of RIS] may apply to unattended installs.'

BTW - re: Diff'rent Strokes
Wasn't the end of the actress who played the 'sister' tragic - it came as a real shock to me since I only learned of her grim demise recently, & had heard nothing of her since I was a 'viewer', perhaps even a fan of the show, when I was a little kid.

[mookydooky]

RIS is included in the Deployment tools for WinXP from MS. It's very similar to unattended install. The computer has to be configured to boot from LAN and you have to have a server set up to allow boot from LAN. Unless you have a very large network, it seems more trouble than it's worth.

[DimViesel]

Ah, ok.
Got you.



...(in my sights )