Definition of Unattended

[martinuk777]

My first post on this forum.

I have read thread upon thread on the creation of an "unattended" boot CD for Windows XP but can not find answers to the specific problems that I am having.

I have also read the Beginners Section of http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/

My understanding of nLite was that you could use an original source for Windows XP (Pro in my case) to create a boot CD which is "unattended" meaning that you can "Press Any Key To Boot CD....." and come back to a Windows desktop after about 20 minutes.

I have the local source, I have nLite.

I run nLite, choose various options (including UK regional settings which is the main reason for me wanting to do a new unattended disc as my original has so many anomolies that I have to change manually post-install, defeating the object of an unattended install really), including the Unattended option.

The particular thing I cannot get my head around is that, no matter which options I try, whenever I create and ISO or actual disc, nLite does not seem to have the option to do an automatic partition and format of the hard drive and it always stops at this part of the install.

My existing unattended disc does not do this.

I understand that the WINNT.SIF in my existing source is not modified, but nLite creates it's own file.

How then do I make an unattended disc which will format an existing NTFS partition, or even create a new partition and format it, when nLite does not seem to have the facility for this option?

I have downloaded the Windows Deployment tool as recommended by http://unattended.msfn.org/ and run the setupmgr tool to create my own WINNT.SIF file but......

what is the point of doing this if nLite creates it's OWN WINNT.SIF file?

I must be missing something obvious here.

http://unattended.msfn.org/ uses nLite

nLite creates it's own WINNT.SIF file

Manual manipulation seems to be required to make WINNT.SIF actually do the formatting

The only way I can see to get around this is to create an ISO, edit the WINNT.SIF file using UltraISO or similar before burning to disc but............

http://unattended.msfn.org/ tells you NOT to use an ISO editor.

I did think that nLite was the niftiest bit of kit, a GUI allowing you to create an unattended CD but I have come to the conclusion that the following things are required:

Local WinXP source

nLite

Windows Deployment Tool to create your own WINNT.SIF

Manual changes of WINNT.SIF within ISO to change formatting options etc

But.....why would you use nLite in the first place when it can't actually (from what I am seeing in my limited experience) create a WINNT.SIF file that does what is required to make a true "unattended" boot disc?

Can anyone see any reason why the following would not work and is this not what I should be doing anyway?

1. Create local source of WinXP

2. Download Windows Deployment tool

3. Run Windows Deployment tool (setupmgr.exe)

4. Save local copy of the newly created WINNT.SIF file (not in local source folder though)

5. Use nLite to create ISO from local source, complete with the nLite created WINNT.SIF file (minus formatting options)

6. Use UltraISO (or similar) to replace the nLite created WINNT.SIF in local source /i386 folder with the WINNT.SIF created by the setupmgr.exe

7. Burn the ISO to disc

I'm suffering from a severe case of information overload at the present time and would appreciate any clear, step by step guidance rather than too much technical detail before I start on my 25th cakebox of CDs :-)

From experience to date, I have failed to use nLite on it's own to create an unattended disc, surely this can't be right?

TIA

Martin

[Ponch]

Very few words to begin with:

1) there are threads about auto partition/auto format that pop up regularly on ths very forum, I'm sure there was one this week.

2) you can manually edit the winnt.sif when nLite stops and asks you for the iso name and lable, thus BEFORE the iso is actually built and WITHOUT needing an iso editor.

I think these answer your main questions, allowing you to make one big step and ask the next ones.