If I use a boot disk to copy the i386 folder to the hard drive and run winnt.exe from there, does the MsdosInitated= switch have to be set to 1?

What happens if I set it to 0?

The only difference I see between the two is the $Winnt$.~ls folder that is temporarily created, but why is this folder necessary when you're installing from a location on the hard drive to start with?

/bump

If anyone is familiar with this please let me know.

Thanks!

no one's done an unattended install from a bootdisk?

Up UP

/bump

still wondering about this. i hope someone out there knows.

no offence but why dont you just try it as nobody seems to have an answer

well all i really want to know is which way is the right way

Can you give me more information about your problem and then I try to help you if I can...

You copy the i386 folder from which location? A CD/DVD, Network?

What does exactly your bootdisk?

Edited September 13, 200520 yr by Bendes

the boot disk boots me into dos mode.

i copy the i386 folder from the CD.

i then want to run winnt.exe from the newly created i386 folder on the hdd, and specify an unattended answer file.

my question is: in the unattended answer file, what should the MsDosInitiated switch be set to?

I thought about doing it a while back too, but I ran into a couple of obstacles. For example the hard drive has to be reformatted to FAT32 (for a Win98 boot disk). You can't copy the i386 folder from your CD to the hard drive if the hard drive is already formatted in NTFS. It's time consuming. Maybe you have a different solution.

Anyway.. I dropped the whole idea. I ended up creating a ghost image of a newly formatted hard drive (FAT32) with the i386 folder in it.

I then use the CD boot disk (with ghost.exe) to reimage the pc with the /rb option to reboot after it's done. It usually takes about 5 minutes long. I added a line of command in the autoexec.bat (on the CD boot disk) to install the OS after the reboot from the ghost imaging.

As far as your question go, I don't have any reference to the MsdosInitated switch. I left it out. I've been using this method to install Windows 2000 & Windows XP. I later found out that I can save a lots of time if I create the image after Windows created the $Winnt$.~ls folder (after the 1st reboot in Windows). If I capture it at that stage, I don't have to install from the beginning or modify my autoexec.bat to start the installation.

This is just the basic foundation to my Windows unattended install. I later added extra drivers, created scripts to install my applications stored on the server as well as patches and hotfixes... blah blah blah..

It works great so far after using it on over 2000 pcs in my company over the course of 2 years. I found all my ideas & answers from this forum. This place rocks!

I hope you start experimenting and tell us of your method(s).

Just omit the entry altogether and see.

There's no valid value of 1, according to ref.chm.

Edited September 14, 200520 yr by Takeshi