Minimum requirements for successful unattended XP install?

[glib]

What are the absolute minimum required lines in winnt.sif (or unattended.txt) to make the installation of XP Pro go through without any further input whatsoever?

Let's assume nothing needs to be tweaked, no slipstreamed drivers or updates needed, I will look into adding them afterwards. Just a full NTFS format and then an installation.

I'm having problems automating this for HP workstations that come with XP preinstalled as well as having a small recovery partition.

Thanks for your time

[Guest]

The following custom file works for me. I use a slightly more robust one for all of my VM test installs.

It will still be necessary to select a partition and file system for installation during the text-mode portion of setup; I believe it is unavoidable or at least unwise for me to avoid those steps. You may want to look into using "AutoPartition=1" under [Data] if you'd like to skip those steps too.

AutoPartition

Installs Windows to the first available partition that has adequate space for a Windows installation and does not already contain an installed version of Windows.

[...]

Either omit the AutoPartition entry from your answer file or set the value of AutoPartition to 1. If AutoPartition = 1, the /tempdrive command-line option of Winnt32.exe is ignored during Setup. If you do not set the value, text-mode Setup installs Windows on the partition where $WIN_NT$.~LS is located.

[Data]
    MsDosInitiated="No"
    UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
    OemSkipEula="Yes"
    TargetPath=\WINDOWS
    UnattendSwitch="Yes"

[GuiUnattended]
    EncryptedAdminPassword="No"
    OEMSkipRegional=1
    TimeZone=35
    AdminPassword=*
    OemSkipWelcome=1

[UserData]
    ProductKey=YOUR-KEY-HERE
    ComputerName=*
    FullName="YOUR NAME HERE"
    OrgName=""

[RegionalSettings]
    ; All languages are in use below, but not all are required.
    LanguageGroup=13,17,3,2,5,16,4,12,15,7,8,10,11,9,6,14,1

[Identification]
    JoinWorkgroup="YOUR-WORKGROUP-NAME-HERE"

[Networking]
    InstallDefaultComponents="Yes"

Edited March 22, 2011 by 5eraph