Hi all, new here. have already succesfully created xp unattended installs using the great info here.

Have a problem I can't resolve tho and would appreciate any help.

In winnt.sif I have elected to change default dirs but only some work. Below I list what works and what doesn't. So my question is why does the 'ProgramFilesDir' and 'CommonProgramFilesDir' not install to those dirs I have set and instead installs to the default C:\Program Files? There is plenty of space on drive D where they are set to be but it's a no go. Hope this is enough info for someone to give me some leads. Thanks

[Unattended]
    UnattendMode=FullUnattended
    OemPnPDriversPath="Drivers\006_storage\highpoint\hpt3xx"
    OemSkipEula=Yes
    OemPreinstall=yes
    DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore
    Repartition=No
    FileSystem=*
    TargetPath="C:\WinXP" ;This works
    KeyboardLayout=Us
    ProgramFilesDir="D:\Apps" ;This does not work?
    CommonProgramFilesDir="D:\Apps\Share" ;This does not work?
    Hibernation=No
    WaitForReboot=No


[GuiUnattended]
    AdminPassword=*
    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
    OEMSkipRegional=1
    TimeZone=35
    OemSkipWelcome=1
    ProfilesDir="E:\Profiles" ;This works

[SystemFileProtection]
    SFCDllCacheDir="E:\Sys\SFC\DLLcache" ;This works

Found the problem, so thought I should post it just incase someone makes my same silly mistake. Don't use this:

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=GuiAttended

For whatever reason, when 'GuiAttended' is used xp ignores dir location/name set for Program Files and uses the default name and location instead.

Below is another silly error:

TargetPath="C:\WinXP" ;This works

I had this in the above post but no it does not work. The error during intial install will be: windows can't install to: '\C:'

I always used the standard syntax, 'TargetPath=\WinXP' but for some odd reason I included the drive letter surrounded with quotes in my last cd (coaster) but actually didn't test it before I made the original post. I had assumed, "c:\winxp" would work the same as the syntax used for ProfilesDir. I guess one should never assume anything.

Anyway, hope the above will help someone from making my same mistakes.