unattended install without CD or network

[jmroberts70]

As working as a PC tech over the years, I've seen installations of Win2K done without either a network or CD through "ghosting" --BUT WITH A TWIST:

The ghosted image had the networking configuration, computer naming, account setup, and hardware detection removed. That meant that upon the first bootup, all was configured by us tech dudes. The nice thing was that all the required apps were installed beforehand, special setups were already in place, and the like. It went beyond just an unattended installation with an answer file. I'd kill to be able to know how they did this. I could then setup a single machine -with all the apps the way I like them, all the customizations I add for better perfornamce and then "repeat when needed" -no matter what the hardware platform is.

Anyone have any idea how they did this? Is it just a matter of wiping parts of the registry or some configuration files?

Thanx in advance.

[CoffeeFiend]

It's VERY easy. Basically, you're not making a unattended install (well, you could always start from that), but you're just cloning PCs. The one program you're looking for is called sysprep (free, by microsoft). Make a nice template, run it and ghost away. Then after cloning that image to other PCs, on bootup, you get a mini-setup (it asks for whatever you want it to - as you entered in your .inf file)

[jmroberts70]

So it IS using sysprep! I was told to check into that but after a bit it research it looked like I had to be running on a MS netowrk with Active Directory or something before it woud work. Was I missing something? Sounds like I was. I'll have to hit that back up and see what documentation is out there. Thanks a ton for the help so far!

[jmroberts70]

Got it! Looks like I may have read bad info in the past. Here's Microsoft's own guide for it. This may turn out to be the easiest form of "unattended installation" ever!

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...;302577&sd=tech

[CoffeeFiend]

No need for active directory or anything, it's completely unrelated to that.

The only catch with cloning like that is, your PC must use the same HAL (hardware abstraction layer), but even then, there's workarounds for that.

Install windows and other stuff, configure, etc.

Run sysprep (with template)

Make an image of it

clone to other PCs

run mini setup on them as they boot

it's all there is to it. No requirements or fancy things.