Hi guys,

I am trying to save space on the unattended DVD and was wondering if all the files in the source directory except for the two wim files are actually needed for a successful unattended installation ? Can I simply delete them and only use the wim files and the boot and efi folders in the root of the Vista DVD ?

What do you guys think ?

Bye,

Alex

Yes have done this look here.

Hi MC,

thanks ! Thats cool ! :-)

Yes you can get rid of few in the root too.

Hi MC,

actually, some of those files are not that unimportant ! I removed every file in the sources dir except for the two wim files and suddenly Windows Vista Enterprise SP1 (VOL) always required a product key during WinPE phase even though I had specified the correct key in the autounattend.xml.

After hours of going through the logs and searching the net, I found the answer in the Microsoft Volume Activation Guide. It says there that Volume License media (enterprise editions) use the temporary PID from the PID.txt file in the sources dir of the root of the DVD during WinPE phase. Only later, in specialise phase, the final PID of the organisation is being used.

So if you delete the PID.txt in the sources dir, this won´t work and unattended installation is always interrupted. Worse, the proper key is sometimes not working during WinPE phase: (have a look at this page)

So at least the pid.txt file in the sources dir should not be deleted. I hope there´s not more ...

Bye,

Alex

Don't get the op to use the enterprise editions so hasn't been a problem for me so far. You're not saving much removing that file anyhow. Testing, testing, testing is what its all about.

Hi again,

well, it seems like those files (at least some of them) are important to the installation (at least with Vista + SP1 installations). I have had a strange error lately: before entering audit mode vista would cause a interactive logon error and stop the installation. See this thread:

Thread

Not having found a solution for days I tried copying the files inside the sources dir back and glady found out that the error was gone.

I have no idea which files are that important to the Vista setup process but simply clearing the sources dir seems to be a very bad idea now, at least with integrated SP1 installations (I did not integrate it manually but got the install DVD directly from MS).

Bye,

Alex

As I mentioned last post it is possible just remove & retest very simple.