Octopuss

Ok then. I assume the key is only meant to be used for installation and is checked vs MS servers, but cannot be activated in the usual way, right? So simply doing dism /set-productkey (or whatever the syntax is) in autounattended.xml should be enough in my case?

Oh I can see the misunderstanding now. What I am looking for is a way to set IP FIRST (by user during the installation) and based on that, set other stuff up and install printers (for example). I guess this could be done by setupcomplete.cmd as it's a batch file.

I think you will automatically reboot into audit mode until you generalize. also I think installed drivers (those you installed yourself) will not carry on into the image, but I am not sure about that.

Oh, this looks like exactly what I am/will be dealing with. I am working on customized syspreped image for Lenovo desktops. When installed from the DVDs that ship with them (or more like the recovery ones I ordered), they come activated already - of course. While looking at the command prompt, I noticed a product key was being applied by standard DISM command. No activation was required after installation and everything worked. After reading this thread, I am not sure at which point shall I add the key to the image. Do I need to put it in my autounattended.xml? Or do I need to do it in a different way? So far I have syspreped the image and plan to further customize it through SIM. Will adding the product key to autounattended.xml that way work?

That's not bad and will be useful for other things, but what I am trying to find out is whether there is a possibility for the setup to ask me to set IP adress at some point. Rest of the network settings could be set based on that. This actually leads me to another question (or the remaining part of it): is it possible to start a batch file during install? Like if ip adress is a.b.c.d, set rest of the values to blabla. I am really unsure what else can I do on top of autounattend.xml.... Hm, not THAT many. I already have syspreped an installation with a fair bit of tweaks. I briefly ran through your blog, but I don't think I can have a deploy server installed in here I have WAIK installed and System Image Manager seems to be able to handle the unattended part well enough.

I got it now well, thank you Rickendo's way is a bit more ellegant than what I did, but it's basically it. Working well. Now I only need to figure the rest of my things up.

Those items are broken down in several other categories though, by those thin separators - what is that dependant on?

If only I googled more and posted later Eventually managed to find out pretty clear and simple enough way to copy WinPE onto prepared USB stick and add AIK tools in there, and in the end capturing the image there. Works wonders I feel less stupid now.

Or maybe if virtual machine is easier to do it with, why not.... I usually use Virtualbox for testing purposes.

I have a PC installed and ready to be sypreped, but I ran into a little problem - I am not sure how to capture the image. I googled a few things up, but none seem to fit in my situation. I would like to avoid having to create some WinPE disk to boot from and do voodoo with, or playing with network shares (got none available for this purpose anyway). Is there an easy way to capture an image of a PC onto USB stick?

That looks good, but I still need the setup to ask me for an IP adress - is that possible without any 3rd party stuff?

Well, I know the values, it's just a question of a possibility of a popup that would let me choose from several... There's no need to collect anything. It's all tied together. Specific IP adresses have specific printers "assigned". If I was able to set some sort of variable based on the IP, I could do silent install of the printers as well, which would rock. But I don't think the installer is that smart

I am working on customized Windows 7 image for computers in a domain. The trouble is that the company is broken up into several smaller deparments, and each is using different printers and more importantly network settings. there is no DHCP server, so network is to be configured manually. Is there a way to have the installation give me choices of different settings for like the network? A popup where I'd simply type all the IP adresses would work too. Basically I need one image that would be variable enough to be used for the whole company.

Yes, all computers are in a domain.

Cluberti, could you (or anyone really) give me some more ideas please? I haven't had any time to work on this thing since I asked the question, but I have to come up with a solution soon. Please note that my knowledge about customizing W7 image is close to zero right now, but I am willing to learn, and plan to dig into this anyway. Basically the situation is like this: a domain with few tens of computers, with W7 computers being added lately. Several people are working on each computer, and local profiles are being used. When a user logs onto a computer he doesn't have a profile on yet, I him not to have to configure anything. There should be icons on the desktop, a printer for that location should already be configured, and Internet Explorer shouldn't pop up that annoying configuration wizard. A few things like that. How do I do that? What are the options? The link you originally posted isn't all that clear to me, or at least doesn't fit in my situation on first read. I guess I could start learning about customizing installation image, BUT I am not sure that could solve all my problems, because I think I need already installed system as a source. Correct me if I am wrong.

As far as I know, MPC-HC is in terrible code state. It's an old code from MPC with some features added on top of it. Noone knows how it really works and most of the development consists of bugfixes and workarounds. Don't get me wrong, I've been using it for a few years and like it, but I don't see much light at the and of the tunnel for it. If I was looking for a player, I wouldn't look at it as an alternative. The same applies to FFDShow by the way...

Only that Nuhi did the job well and his applications were in good and useful state This indian crap is a huge fail.

A funny update: they STILL have no replied to my ticket despite pressing it. What fail company.

nevermind, reading failure

Thank you! You actually made me look at the syntax as well, and I finally started to understand it a bit

Looking at the article, it looks like it involves customizing the Windows installation disk. Is there any way to do this on already installed system?

Thank you!

Yeah I found that too, eventually, but how do I change that in nLite?

Please?

I need to customize default user profile on computers running Windows 7. On XP this was easy: I simply logged in with my domain admin account first, configured/installed whatever I needed, put some icons to desktop etc, and then copied my profile over default user folder. This is no longer working under Windows 7, but I kinda need it, because users are often switching at the computers. Can I get a few tips please?