I am booting to WinPE from the WAIK and I need to be able to start the installation passing an unattend.xml. I can get the installation to start just fine but the licensing screen won't take my MAK key and I cannot continue without entering a key.

If I boot using to Boot.WIM from the CD the key works just fine but I cannot use this WIM file because it automatically wants to go right into Windows setup. Is there any way to edit the Boot.WIM so it drops me to a command prompt? If not, what is the best approach to launching setup using the WinPE or any other image that I can use the .NET framework on?

Thanks!!

This depends on how you intent to install Vista.

If you have an image you want to push down I believe you need to use sysprep and the image together with an unattend for any customizations.

If you want deploy the OS in the same manner that you used to use Winnt32.exe in the old days, run setup.exe with the /unattend command line switch and specify the unattend.xml file to use. Your Unattend.xml file needs to point to the OS's wim image file and contain all the sttings you need to customize the install. The MAK key should be in the appropriate sections in the unattend.

Alternatively you can use a KMS license server and leave the license key blank, then on joining your domain the OS will automatically find the license server and license itself.

There are a few options for you.

Deployment Walkthroughs