Prompt for nothing but computer name

[diamond]

Hello all,

I am working on an unattended Volume License Disk of XP Pro for where I work. We want to have all the same apps and base (hence why the disk would be VERY handy), but have a 'special' naming pattern that cant easily be put in a list (BUILDINGROOM#-DEPT-COMPUTER#). Is it possible to have the unattended installer prompt you for a computer name and nothing else? I know that I could do a minisetup with default screens, but that still leaves a lot of click/wait/click/wait time. If anyone knows how to do this, I'd be very interested in knowing!

TIA,

Diamond

[pup]

Can't you just write a normal unattended winnt.sif, but leave the computername out?

I'll try it (give me 20 minutes), if it works then I'll elaborate...

[diamond]

Well, I dont have a virtual pc to test on here, but I know that when using sysprep for our images in the past leaving the computer name out will make you go through the entire mini setup. I can't tell you for sure that is what will happen with an unattended install, but I would *assume* it's the same. (There's that *assume* tag... A real big red flag. )

Diamond

Also, if you've tried it on a virtual PC please let me know your results, I'd love to see it work! (and be that simple!)

EDIT: I've got to get out of work since they're shutting the doors on me, but I'll check back tomorrow morning on this thread. And if I don't see you past that, thanks pup for your help and handy use of your VMWare.

[pup]

And you'll have to set the Unattend property to 'DefaultHide' property:

[unattended]    UnattendMode=DefaultHide

From ref.chm (Support\Tools\Deploy.cab)

DefaultHide

Specifies that answers in the answer file are defaults. Unlike UnattendMode = ProvideDefault, Setup does not display the user interface to end users if all the answers relating to a particular Setup page are specified in the answer file. If only subsets of the answers on a page are specified, the page is displayed with the provided answers. The end user can modify any of the answers on the displayed page.

Use UnattendMode = DefaultHide in deployment scenarios where an administrator might only want end users to provide the administrator password on the computer. This behavior is the default if unattended mode is not specified.

(I might be talking crap though - I have had a couple of beers )

[pup]

Testing it on VMWare as we speak...

[Alanoll]

I believe pup is correct.

If you left out the ProductID or Key in a FullUnattedend setup, it would still ask.

I've never actually tried though, but there were a few posts not long ago about it

[pup]

The only prompt I received was the Computername/Admin Password screen (as per screen shot).

(Actually, it also asked me which partition to install it on, but that's just because that's the way I want it to work)

My winnt.sif:

;SetupMgrTag[Data]    AutoPartition=0    MsDosInitiated="0"    UnattendedInstall="Yes"
[unattended]    UnattendMode=DefaultHide    OemSkipEula=Yes    OemPreinstall=Yes    TargetPath=\WINDOWS    UnattendSwitch=yes    DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore    DisableDynamicUpdates=Yes    Hibernation=0
[Display]    BitsPerPel=32    Xresolution=1024    Yresolution=768    Vrefresh=60
[GuiUnattended]    AdminPassword=qwerty    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO    OEMSkipRegional=1    TimeZone=85    OemSkipWelcome=1    AutoLogon=yes    AutoLogonCount=1
[userData]    ProductID=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX    FullName="My Name"    OrgName="My Org"
[RegionalSettings]    LanguageGroup=1    SystemLocale=00000809    UserLocale=00000809    InputLocale=0809:00000809
[identification]    JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP
[Networking]    InstallDefaultComponents=Yes
[Components]    msmsgs=off    msnexplr=off
[shell]    DefaultStartPanelOff=Yes    DefaultThemesOff=Yes
[GuiRunOnce]    %systemdrive%\install\main_batch.cmd    %systemdrive%\install\tidy.cmd

Hope this is what you wanted!

Make sure you check out the following resources:

Official Unattended XP CD Guide

XPCreate

XP Hotfix downloader (in XPCreate folder structure)

Let me know if you have any problems,

- Pup

[diamond]

Those changes worked wonderfully. Now all I have to do it work out the kinks (.net wants to agree to license, WMP9 complains of system restore, auto-login didnt auto-login) and it'll work great. Thanks for all your help Pup, I really appreciate it!

Diamond

[LayZeh]

So to summarise, what changes do i need to make so that only the Computer Name & Admin Password Screen are shown?

[diamond]

So to summarise, what changes do i need to make so that only the Computer Name & Admin Password Screen are shown?

Just follow Pup's example. The two main components that I changed on Winnt.sif were

[unattended]

  UnattendMode=DefaultHide

and then deleted the ComputerName= field altogether.

Thats all it took over here to get it to go.

[pup]

@Diamond

I'm glad I could help.

Those changes worked wonderfully. Now all I have to do it work out the kinks (.net wants to agree to license, WMP9 complains of system restore, auto-login didnt auto-login) and it'll work great. Thanks for all your help Pup, I really appreciate it!

I'd strongly recommend using the XPCreate method for creating your disk. If you follow this, with the recommended downloads (which you can download with a single click using Jono's Autodownloader), then you'll have an XP build disk that will seamlessly have all the service packs to date, Media Player 9, DirectX 9.0b, .Net framework 1.1, etc. already installed.

I think that covers everything except the auto-logon. I remember seeing a post saying that if you encrypt the admin password then you can't use auto-logon - don't know if this affects you, but it might.

(links to XPCreate and Autodownloder in previous post)

- Pup

[diamond]

@Diamond

I'm glad I could help. 

Those changes worked wonderfully. Now all I have to do it work out the kinks (.net wants to agree to license, WMP9 complains of system restore, auto-login didnt auto-login) and it'll work great. Thanks for all your help Pup, I really appreciate it!

I'd strongly recommend using the XPCreate method for creating your disk. If you follow this, with the recommended downloads (which you can download with a single click using Jono's Autodownloader), then you'll have an XP build disk that will seamlessly have all the service packs to date, Media Player 9, DirectX 9.0b, .Net framework 1.1, etc. already installed.

I think that covers everything except the auto-logon. I remember seeing a post saying that if you encrypt the admin password then you can't use auto-logon - don't know if this affects you, but it might.

(links to XPCreate and Autodownloder in previous post)

- Pup

Pup,

That could definetely be it. Since I work at a large world-domination-oriented organization *sic*, we have to encrypt our passwords else we can't really post them.. It's that whole security policy thing that we had to put in place.

The XPCreate is something that I looked at when you posted it, and it looks like 'revision 1.1' will definetely use it -- By the time I posted my question I'd already spent all the up front work finding, downloading, and slipstreaming (or writing the hotfix code) for the image, so I didn't want to throw that out and start anew -- mainly since I already had a lot of third party utilities (WinZip, Real Alt, quickalt, Acrobat Reader, etc) already written in as well. From looking at the site it mentions that it intrgrates all the hotfixes and service packs, but do you know at what level it does that? that way I can more quickly update the installation and not have to 'start from scratch' and logically reintegrate all the 3rd party stuff.

Have a good weekend all!

Diamond