I am working on customized Windows 7 image for computers in a domain. The trouble is that the company is broken up into several smaller deparments, and each is using different printers and more importantly network settings. there is no DHCP server, so network is to be configured manually.

Is there a way to have the installation give me choices of different settings for like the network? A popup where I'd simply type all the IP adresses would work too.

Basically I need one image that would be variable enough to be used for the whole company.

You'll need to have a program do this, probably on first logon. For example, you can have a program write to a txt file (formatted properly of course) then it will put the data input and save to the text file. Then after all the data is collected, you can use netsh -f location.txt to set the network settings.

I don't know if there are any programs out there that can do this already.

Well, I know the values, it's just a question of a possibility of a popup that would let me choose from several... There's no need to collect anything.

It's all tied together. Specific IP adresses have specific printers "assigned". If I was able to set some sort of variable based on the IP, I could do silent install of the printers as well, which would rock. But I don't think the installer is that smart

Edit corrected

It searches the Interfaces key for specific DhcpIPAddress and sets the variable %IPAddress%

Then you could do some commands from there

Edited July 23, 201115 yr by maxXPsoft

This works

REG QUERY HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces /s /v DhcpIPAddress | FINDSTR /I "192.168.1.3"
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET IPAddress=192.168.1.3

REG QUERY HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces /s /v DhcpIPAddress | FINDSTR /I "192.192.1.3"
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 SET IPAddress=192.192.1.3

ECHO %IPAddress%
pause

That looks good, but I still need the setup to ask me for an IP adress - is that possible without any 3rd party stuff?

should be able to use this. Ran across that last week trying to set mine static

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257748

To change to a static address, type the following command:

netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" static ipaddr subnetmask gateway metric

NOTE: Replace ipaddr with the static IP address, subnetmask with the subnet mask, gateway with the default gateway and, if necessary, metric with the appropriate metric. The following example changes the interface "Local Area Connection" to a static address of 192.168.0.10 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and the interface has a default gateway of 192.168.0.1 with a metric of 1:

netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.10 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.1 1

How many questions do you expect you'll need to have your deployment answer, and what types of things are these? MDT might be useful here.

should be able to use this. Ran across that last week trying to set mine static

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257748

To change to a static address, type the following command:

netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" static ipaddr subnetmask gateway metric

NOTE: Replace ipaddr with the static IP address, subnetmask with the subnet mask, gateway with the default gateway and, if necessary, metric with the appropriate metric. The following example changes the interface "Local Area Connection" to a static address of 192.168.0.10 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and the interface has a default gateway of 192.168.0.1 with a metric of 1:

netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.10 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.1 1

That's not bad and will be useful for other things, but what I am trying to find out is whether there is a possibility for the setup to ask me to set IP adress at some point. Rest of the network settings could be set based on that. This actually leads me to another question (or the remaining part of it): is it possible to start a batch file during install? Like if ip adress is a.b.c.d, set rest of the values to blabla.

I am really unsure what else can I do on top of autounattend.xml....

How many questions do you expect you'll need to have your deployment answer, and what types of things are these? MDT might be useful here.

Hm, not THAT many. I already have syspreped an installation with a fair bit of tweaks. I briefly ran through your blog, but I don't think I can have a deploy server installed in here I have WAIK installed and System Image Manager seems to be able to handle the unattended part well enough.

Edited July 26, 201115 yr by TheWalrus

perhaps during Setupcomplete.cmd you could check Ip and change it using both above. Firstlogoncommands would be too late

Oh I can see the misunderstanding now.

What I am looking for is a way to set IP FIRST (by user during the installation) and based on that, set other stuff up and install printers (for example). I guess this could be done by setupcomplete.cmd as it's a batch file.