realdannys

Is that declared by the ISO? I downloaded it from the MSDN link. I believe its OEM, they are the keys i'm using anyway. I see a MAK folder created occasionally i'm not sure why though or what that means. The original 8.1 install was created with a Boot Camp installation USB - so i'm not sure what it does to the installer. More unnecessary Microsoft complications really - there should just be one version. There's one version of OS X, you either have it or you don't - why the need to split things up to make more money. Well i've answered my own question there - to make money.

It uses Windows 8.1 Pro. I think thats what you mean.

Yes you're right - it's just ignored though. Source was just Windows 8.1 64bit English US ISO. The first time it did indeed ask for a key when I installed it for Bootcamp but i'm trying to make a clone of it to deploy for my system builds and now it just asks the user to accept a license volume agreement. I've even put product key as XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX but it still won't ask again. It's not major problem as once they've set up the account they go in and activate from the settings panel - but I think it would be more professional if they could enter the key whilst creating their user account (and for my novice customers it would help me explain less steps!)

No one know this?

Hi, So i've got my sysprep image doing all the driver installs etc that I need but the OOBE doesn't ask for a key, it allows the user to accept licensing terms. Its not activated when it finally goes through, but I want it to ask for the key during OOBE. I've set rearm and skipautoactivation is off. Below is my unattended.xml - there must be a key I guess in the image that it is using to get past the OOBE screen even though the one I use to actually activate is removed as part of the rearm phase. Do I need to add an empty product key section in the unattend.xml or something, if so where? Pointers appreciated. Need to get this sorted in the next hour ideally. unattend.xml

I guess, but either way the initial setup of Windows is painfully slow and laborious even if it has access to the right drivers.

I've got it to work in the end, I went from never hearing of answer files yesterday to figuring out what they all did by last night haha. So it works perfectly, things wouldn't work in specalize so I used audit mode, generalized and shutdown to Audit - captured my image and now when I deploy the image and boot on the Mac it goes into Audit user, runs brigadier which sees the model, and goes to my internal server to download the correct bootcamp setup, expands it and installs it and runs everything, cleans up the tools needed after itself then reboots, then my script runs which deletes any bootcamp logs, runs command line Windows Update tool and installs any critical updates automatically, then when its finished that sends me a push notification to my OS X and iOS devices to let me know its finished before shutting down the computer. Next time a user boots up they're at the OOBE screen and when they sign in everything is up to date and all working perfectly with all the correct drivers. The only downside is that with the clone deploy, and then the lengthy setup Windows requires it takes about 90 minutes to deploy and its got nothing installed on it - where as my OS X image which is packed with apps and games too fully deploys in 5 minutes over Thunderbolt to another SSD ah well. Onto Windows 8.1 next...

Well - having read all day, I think I may have figured it out. This depends on two things - if I can run the .exe succesfully under the syncronous "path" section in AuditUser and if AuditUser will reboot into OOBE. I've added "reseal - Audit" to the audit system pass so it boots into AuditUser - but reseal OOBE is default on audit and as I remember it doesn't actually reboot into OOBE it'll always reboot back into Audit User - so do I need to add a sysprep command to my second script in AuditUser to get it to shutdown and start in the end user OOBE? If I do this with sysprep.exe /oobe will it go straight to oobe or will it try to read the unattend.xml file again and go through the entire setup process?

Thats not really any use for me as the brigadier needs to run on every system and dynamically installs the correct drivers for that system...

Hi thanks for the reply. I was just trying to see if it was possible to add a shell script command to the audituser as that would seem to be the ideal place to run it, but it doesn't appear so. A dirty way of doing it might be to auto login as the built in administrator, do all the work, run all the scripts, delete all the scripts/clean disable the built in administrator and then run sysprep in the bash script and point it to a new unattended.xml which has the end use OOBE setup (if I actually want to change anything there...probably not) Finally I could delete that 2nd unattended.xml on the firstlogincommands when the real end user logs in? It'd work...but I don't know if there's a simplier way of doing it before OOBE starts without any interactions with me - as I say, audituser pass would be idea, but I can't seem to figure out how to automatically run scripts. EDIT: Actually I presume I can run it in auditmode with syncronous command and put in path as something like "cmd.exe / c:/script.bat" or whatever? If thats the case I won't need to go quite as long around the houses as previously mentioned and I wouldn't need to run sysprep oobe again or create a separate file. I'll try it.

Hi guys, So assume me an id*** bluffing my way through this. I'm trying to create a Win 7 and Win 8.1 clone that I can deploy on all Macs for customers. I'm nearly there but i'm having problems with my answer files. I have a clone I can roll out - and the situation is that it runs a script called "brigadier" which downloads the correct bootcamp drivers for that Mac (from my internet server for speed) and installs them. It runs during "firstlogoncommands" it doesn't however reboot, and it would seem to need to do this to apply the new display settings etc. I have my image sysprepped and generalized ready to deploy to any hardware. What I want to do is deploy it to disk and boot have it run the brigadier install, reboot and leave the end customer with the screen to create their account. The problem at the minute is, the command line loads, but for some reason it required me to interact and close the window before it ran the brigadier command (could have been a fault with an earlier file) as mentioned it doesn't reboot...but even more annoying it does all this AFTER the first user account has been created and then doesn't give a user account OOBE again... I thought they were supposed to run before you enter account details? Do I need to make a default admin user logon first? I don't really want any created accounts on the machine so the user sets it up as if its new out of the box, it just already has the drivers installed correctly for them. Finally id really like to run a Powershell script before it reboots to display the user creation screen - would I run this as a final FirstLoginCommand? I'm a Unix guy really so I don't know how to run Power Shell Scripts or even what format they should be in, so if someone could help create this script so that I can send myself a push notification when the Windows setup is finished that would be perfect. https://pushover.net/faq#library-win32 I've attached my currently incorrect file which is as far as i've got, but having read some of your posts, you guys would be able to point me in the right direction instantly really and i'll be poking around in a dark room for about 12 hours trying to guess. So to reiterate i've got my generalized image, I've got it to read my answer file, I just need to get it setup in the right order. Turn on computer, boot into setup, run brigadier, install all the bootcamp drivers, afters its finished, run the powershell script to send a push notification informing me its done, and then shut down. Now when an end users next turns on the computer it should give them the user creation screen - I think it would be best if the CD-Key enter is skipped here too if possible and they can change it later from system settings with "change product key". Hopefully you awesome guys can help me get this sorted quickly! test.xml