mmarable

Everything works the same when doing a XP64 unattended install as it is when doing an XP32 unattended install. The only exception is that the WinNT.sif file goes into the i386 folder when working with XP32, but you put the sif file into the AMD64 folder when working with XP64. All the documentation that can be found here: http://unattended.msfn.org applies the same to both 32bit and 64bit Windows with that one exception. What exactly does the install say that it cannot find? There could be a number of reasons that you're having problem. If you tell us the exact error then we'll be better able to help you.

It's going to be tough, but you could use a script to pull the MAC address, and then pull the answer file base on that. Compname.exe will pull the MAC address, I think it will also pull the S/N from the BIOs, so either of those will work. You could leave out the CD key from the answer file and manually key it in during the install. Manually entering the CD key vs. creating 100 answer files and a process for selecting them automatically.

It's easy. Just get the 2003R2 CD, CD#2 to be exact. CD#1 is just the same Win2003 install as you may already have with SP1 already slipstreamed in. CD#2 has the additional software for the R2 features. I believe that Microsoft may still offer the download of CD#2 with a 120day trial key.

Just switch on the hidden attibute in a script. The shortcut will still be there in case you change your mind later on.

Spinejam, what is this? It looks like it could possibly be an nLite addon, but you don't say and it's not in the nLite forum. You should put some explanation of what exactly you're doing, otherwise few people are going to download something blindly from a Rapidshare server and use it.

I tried the /integrate switch with beta 3 and it does not work. How is it done within nLite? I'd like to know.

Are you going to have to update WUD to use the additional UL files? I thought I'd take a look to see how difficult this would be and if I could do it without screwing it up. I downloaded WUD 2.0 and started playing with the UL file included in it. It seems that you can name the UL file anything you like, but WUD will only work if there's one file in the directory with it.

Funny how you would be asking about this. I royally screwed up this weekend. I've been working on unattended Vista installs. A little tidbit, Vista will automatically look for the unattended XML file on any removable media. I had been writing an XML and testing it in VMWare at work. For safe keeping I kept a backup copy on my USB drive. My home system had 2 partitions, one for my OS and one for my data. Late Saturday night I decided to install Vista. So, I booted up the DVD and totally forgot that I still had the USB drive plugged in. Off I go to the kitchen to get some food thinking that when I get back the installer would be sitting there waiting for me to enter the CD key. WRONG! I came back to find it copying files onto the freshly repartitioned drive. Sure enough, lost everthing. Including all the work I've done over the years with unattended Windows and app installs.

There have been numerous threads on adding fonts and skinning Windows. Remember, the search tool here is the best resource you'll find. I will tell you this, fonts are easy. Skinning on the other hand (using WindowBlinds) will be much trickier.

You can use a diskpart script that will switch the drive letters around. Kind of like this: SEL DISK 0 SEL PART 2 REMOVE SEL VOL 0 ASSIGN LETTER E SEL DISK 0 SEL PART 2 ASSIGN LETTER D RESCAN EXIT What this does is select the second partition on drive 0, removes the drive letter (E in this case), selects the CDROM, assigns E: to that, then goes back and assigns D: to the second partition on drive 0. Partitioning in RIS is not available. All you can do it turn off the autopartitioning and manually do it.

All the answers and more can be found here: http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/79/

You're going to want to change this Registry key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title You may have to create the string value Window Title. Just plug in what ever text you want for your title. Since it's a current user key make sure that you're logged in as the main user when you make the change.

Yes, Windows Deployment Services. Which, although buggy as hell right now has the potential to be a great replacement for RIS. Snag, I'm guessing you're going to do a custom WinPE 2.0 image that ImageXs your WIM down to the workstation?

Okay, before I download something that openly advertises that it'll download and install stuff from the Internet, a little more info would be helpful. The site you point to is just the download location and doesn't provide any information. What exactly is this going to do? What apps will it download? What is that executable that you're posting? Is it an archive of your files or the downloader/installer itself? This sounds cool, but before I touch it I need to know what to expect.

I'm getting a dead link on the executable. I can download the 2 text files though.

There could very well be something up with the chipset. What happens with a hand install of factory WinXP? Exactly when does it blue-screen on you?

Spend a couple of days building a DVD that autoinstalls everything. Take the next 4 weeks off for vacation. You're pretty well painted into a corner with this one. You have no enterprise deployment like SMS or RIS, so you're left with disk based installs. You have 14 or so different hardware platforms, so using Ghost or some other imaging method would prove to be too difficult for the time frame you're looking for. If you're open to developing an enterprise deployment process, you could use the Business Desktop Deployment system from Microsoft, but that is going to rely on WinPE so if you don't have that you're out of luck. Do you have access to a server, or even a workstation that you could use to serve out the binaries to install over the network? You could use BartPE to boot the workstations and then install over the network.

It's a 2 step process. You just need to get the font files into the fonts folder. You can do this either by copying them with a script or by putting them into $OEM$\$$\Fonts. Which ever best fits your needs. The second step "initializes" them. (I can't think of a better term right now). Even though the files are there, Windows won't make use of them because they haven't been inventoried (that's probably a better way of saying it.) The easiest way is to open the fonts folder in Explorer and then close it. It sounds goofy, but it works. Windows will inventory the fonts and they'll be available in your apps. If you don't do this second step, then they will not be available. Try it, just copy a font file into your fonts folder. It HAS to be done via the command line. If you just drag and drop a font file, Windows inventories it right then. Pick a font that will stand out and be obvious. Open Word, and the font is not there. Open your fonts folder in Explorer. Go back to Word and your font should now be availabe.

What sort of maintenance are you doing? There are several solutions that will do regularly scheduled maintenance, but it all depends on what you want to accomplish. In a nutshell, you could write a script that does everything you're looking to do and schedule a task within Windows to execute it every night. You can probably set your machines to automatically power themselves on at a specific time, so even if they're powered off you can still update them. If not, there are several command-line Wake On LAN (WOL) tools that you can run from a central "server" that will wake each machine up if it's power down. If you're looking a quite a lot of machines, then you could always go with SMS. So, how many machines are you talking about and what exactly to you want to accomplish with them?

Okay, is this possible? From what I've been reading here in the forum, I want to try and install Vista from a network share. I'll create a share on one system and copy install.wim to it. Boot my target machine using WinPE. DiskPart to create the partition. Use XIMAGE to apply install.wim to my new partition. Will that work, or should I just copy the DVD contents to the share and run Setup from there? Thanks

Sure, you could leave CMDOW on your install media, you would just need to add the full path to any batch file that you are calling it from. Putting it into System32 makes it simple to just put CMDOW @ /HID at the top of any batch script. If you keep it on your install media, you would just need to change it to something like: f:\Installs\Tools\CMDOW @ /HID (of course the path would be to where you do have it).

Usually at first boot. The Windows Disk Protection requires a reboot between the initialization of the partition and the activation of the utility, and then a final reboot to kick it into gear. Other than that one tool, everything else just needs the one reboot afterwards.

Everything in the SCT is scriptable and each tool has command line options. Yes, it can be done. The handbook has details on all the command line tools.

Yes. The simple way would be to have a flag file on the root of the USB stick, and have a batch file look for it and assign a variable like %USB% to it. You're install script would read something like this: ECHO Installing Application "A" %USB%\Apps\Application A\Setup.exe /......

Yes, you have to keep your flat image and RIPrep images in sync. RIS will use the flat image to perform the underlying Windows install, and then layer on your RIPrep image.