c1ockwork

Hi Johnr, If you want to perform an unattended installation of Windows over a network you need the Microsoft OEM Pre-installation Kit, which I use at work daily for pre-loading machines (in an unattended fashion) with Windows XP before they get shipped to customers. Unfortunately the OEM Preinstallation Kit is only available to Microsoft OEM Customers who purchase 3 copies of Windows XP OEM in a bundle (you get 1 copy of the OEM Preinstallation Kit CD with the bundle of 3 OEM copies of Windows XP). That said, if you know anyone in the industry they will probably be using them as drink coasters, or you could search around online for an ISO. The CD contains both the bootable WindowsPE and the setup files for the OEM Preinstallation Kit. The OEM Preinstallation kit uses WindowsPE to boot from CD, connects to a network share and downloads all the setup files necessary for installing XP to the local hard drive. It then reboots and performs a (pretty much) standard unattended installation. You can take most of the customizations you learn about on MSFN and apply them to OEM Preinstallation Kit too. I use the excellent driver packs and the brilliant WPI to further automate the installation over and above what the OEM Preinstall Kit does (though a little customization is often required). I like using this method at home too instead of imaging (Ghosting) my primary machine because I found that with Ghosting by the time I needed to reload my machine practically all the software in the image would be outdated. Removing and reloading all the new software was as big a job as a normal attended installation, so it somewhat defeated the purpose of doing it in the first place! Using the OEM Preinstallation kit I can just update the setup files on the network server and presto, up to date installation. Otherwise, you can use RIS (Remote Installation Services, only available on MS Server Products) to do a completely CDless install, but it’s fairly painful. I wouldn’t recommend it for you purposes, and you need to be running a server OS anyways. Hope this helps! Edit: More Info: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/winpreinst/opk.mspx Cheers, PC