ComputerName Unattended Loop Caveat

[striskle]

I had been having a problem with a completely unattended install I thought I'd share for everyone's reference.

I have created my scripted OS install and have been distributing it to a test machine (Dell 745) for the last few weeks - working out the bugs etc. This week I went to try the same scripted install on another machine to test the "hardware independence" of my image. When I attempted to install it to another workstation (Dell GX620) it would get to the T-30 minute mark when it just completes installing the network and should move on to the "Finalizing" part of the install - instead the machine reboots, shows the "Windows Setup is Restarting" screen and continues installing from T-39. This process loops forever. I thought I had a bad GX620 driver so I ran the scripted install on another Dell 745 test machine I had - it too got to the T-30 minute mark and rebooted back to the T-39 minute mark. I removed the network drivers from my scripted OS install since I beleived the problem was perhaps with the driver - and the install completed without error (no looping).

What was happening is this:

My UNATTEND.TXT file has a line that specifies the computer name:

[userData]

ComputerName=SOSIXPSP3

At the T-30 minute mark the network drivers have just finished installing and the network is started. In my case my original test machine was ON when I was attempting to install to the other test machines. As my computer name was set in UNATTENDED, the new scripted install was attempting to start networking with THE SAME NAME as my test machine. This caused the networking startup to fail and in turn caused the scripted install to fail, reboot and restart (loop). I turned off my test machine and presto! setup stopped looping and finished properly.

THE SOLUTION:

Don't set ComputerName in your UNATTENDED.TXT file. Instead use the:

[userData]

ComputerName=*

And allow XP to randomly generate a name for your computer.

Since I couldn't find this problem/solution documented anywhere thought I'd post this to this forum!

[Martin H]

Yeah, I have also used that method for some time now, since you also have that problem when testing an ISO out in a VM, if the guest and host has the same name...

Anyway, nice tip, mate

CU, Martin.