NickAtNight

it would be nice if it actually worked that way, but it doesn't. the documentation in the ref.chm is a nice starting point, but frankly it's outright wrong in some places and doesn't explain well enough in others for example if you use quotes or don't use quotes in certain lines, it messes up the parsing of WINNT.SIF somehow. the ref.chm doesn't explain this and in fact tells you to use quotes on some entries where you can not use them that's the problem i had when i moved my WINNT.SIF from my SP1 CD to my new SP2 CD just SOP for microsoft, IMO Actually I test by making Nero NRG files, Daemon Manager to mount the image, and then using VMWare to test the install - much faster

Situation: You want a generic Windows XP installation CD that has all the screens intact for entering user and computer information, partitioning and formatting your drive(s) and the options for repairing Windows installations, but you are tired of typing the product key in each time you install Windows XP Solution: Use the following WINNT.SIF files XP SP2 slipstreamed CD XP SP1 slipstreamed CD kind of silly that Microsoft places such emphasis on where you use quotes in an unattended setup answer file... this drove me nuts for a few days, until I finally got it right, with some help from people in this forum. so hopefully, this will save someone else a lot of time and headaches

ok you were right! it is quotes - bu it's quotes on the other two entries that were messing me up also i'll make a new thread with the exact details for anyone who tries to do the same thing and starts tearing out clumps of hair like i have! B) thanks, kelsenellenelvian - you were right on the money

see my loooong post above this one basically, i chose "ProvideDefault" instead of "Hide" but same difference, since I am not giving any of the settings in the WINNT.SIF besides the product key and there is a big difference in the way setup acts when you have a "UnattendMode=" entry and when you don't. with that entry in there, a lot of screens are skipped, no matter what you set it to

I thought I'd add a bit more info - I have been at this a long time with no success. IMO SP2 and WINNT.SIF is buggy - the installer is just not reading the WINNT.SIF the way it's supposed to. If you go through the SP2 setupmgr.exe from the DEPLOY directory and provide only the product key and choose "Provide Defaults" for "User Interaction level" this is the unattend.txt you get A lot of this i just don't want. I don't want autopartitioned hard drives. I don't want to skip regional. I don't want the workgroup specified. I don't want the networking settings specified. I don't want to specify the target directory. so you clean out those entries and you come up with this: the only problem is if you use this as your WINNT.SIF the setup skips many of the screens I need to access. it skips the text welcome screen (where you can choose to repair or install). it skips the license agreement (well that's ok). it skips the 15 second reboot pause (again ok - just explaining how even tho i didn't add those lines, it does it anyways). once in GUI mode, it does skip the product key screen (that's good!) but also skips the networking screens for typical/custom settings as well as workgroup/domain settings if you take it down to the bare minimum... (without the two entries in DATA section setup crashes) it doesn't skip any screens, but also ignores the product key again, on an SP1 CD this worked. on an SP2 CD is doesn't i have made about 15 CDs now trying to get this to work and I am about to give up I guess, unless anyone else has an idea thanks to everyone here for their time in trying to help!

no, and I don't want it in there I am trying make a general purpose XP installation CD. I only want to avoid the hassle of typing a product key each time. I use this CD to install many machines - some join a domain, some don't. some have static IPs some have dynamic. user name and organization are almost always different. sometimes i have to specify device drivers (F6). sometimes i am trying to repair a damaged installation of Windows. you get the idea

koszopal I assume you mean with only that one line in the WINNT.SIF (one line in one category that is). I have tried that - that doesn't work either Thanks!

i have

it's more than just the quotes. like i mentioned in my first post, i am trying to do a minimal WINNT.SIF. these three lines work perfectly in a SP1 CD, but not with SP2 with this WINNT.SIF on a SP1 CD, the install is just like a CD with no WINNT.SIF at all, except it skips the Product Key screen.

it's coming up with a screen and asking me for the product key because it's not reading the key out of the WINNT.SIF when it comes to that screen, the boxes for the key are blank. if I press next, I get a message that i must type a valid product key

nope, none of those. as i mentioned, this product key is a legitimate key, issued to the company i work for

nope - didn't work anyone have any other ideas? thanks!

that sounds like a good suggestion - I will try it now and post back here thanks!

I like to have a WINNT.SIF on my XP CD that bypasses the "enter your product key" screen and nothing else. With XP SP1 this WINNT.SIF worked perfectly: [userData] ProductKey="xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx" [Data] MSDosInitiated=0 UnattendedInstall=Yes This doesn't work on SP2 - the screen comes up asking for a product key. The key I am using is valid - it is my company's volume licensing key. I am using XP volume licensing edition (corporate edition) and I slipstreamed the service packs in myself. Anyone else run across this? Or better yet, anyone know how to make this work with SP2? Thanks!