unattended vista

**T D** · June 21, 2006

the beta in question was the beta for Vista/longhorn, so no they aren't taking anymore applicatants for it, teh BDD will be released publicly soon (i hope) but till then you will have to make your Unattended Vista installs by hand

I've got a copy of vista beta 2 but I haven't installed it (except in vmware, testing). When you say "the beta in question was the beta for vista/longhorn" does that mean it's on the dvd or something?

@McoreD The unattend.xml (not unattended.xml) goes in %VISTA%:\Docs. You know it's the right one cos there are two other xml files. They're templates.

Edited June 21, 2006 by T D

**ddebacker** · June 21, 2006

Sorry 'bout the confusion.

The WAIK is not yet ready for mass consumer downloads... gonna check when it will be made publicly available.

**fizban2** · June 21, 2006

The unattend.xml (not unattended.xml) goes in %VISTA%:\Docs. You know it's the right one cos there are two other xml files. They're templates.

Wrong folder,

look tommorow for a short guide on doing an unattended Vista Disk

@McoreD

The old way is by writing out the XML by hand, vista will only accept XML unattend files. they have broken down the all the old inf files and they all can be expressed in on XML through a series of Passes. More tommorow

Edited June 21, 2006 by fizban2

**elit** · June 22, 2006

are U looking for this? :
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en
Got the User guide.
Looking for what ddebacker mentioned.
Guess you have to install the WAIK first
If I remember well it's a 900 MB download...
Thanks,
McoreD

good day

i hope you can to write guide for us

i need it for my work to Deployment for Windows Vista

and guide us from the beginning how to create image from the vista dvd 5384 and if need any additional software

thanks

eli

Edited June 22, 2006 by elit

**T D** · June 22, 2006

On second thoughts, because they are documens they go in docs...

**ddebacker** · June 22, 2006

The BDD 2007 (Business Desktop Deployment) has been released 'publicly'.

You can now download it from

http://connect.microsoft.com

Sign in and download the BDD kit (924 MB download) to get everything you need to test (including the WDS aka Windows Deployment Services formerly named ADS).

You'll find the BDD under 'Available Connections' on the left menu.

Check for the following Program:

"Business Desktop Deployment 2007 (Beta) for Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system"

Have fun

**elit** · June 22, 2006

The BDD 2007 (Business Desktop Deployment) has been released 'publicly'.
You can now download it from
http://connect.microsoft.com
Sign in and download the BDD kit (924 MB download) to get everything you need to test (including the WDS aka Windows Deployment Services formerly named ADS).
You'll find the BDD under 'Available Connections' on the left menu.
Check for the following Program:
"Business Desktop Deployment 2007 (Beta) for Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system"
Have fun

many thanks i start to download and then tested

eli

**fizban2** · June 22, 2006

OK

sorry about the not posting thing here we go

Unattend Vista

Things you will Need

Vista Beta 2 DVD

software to recreate the image (i will use OSCDimg)

Blank DVD or Virtual PC to test ISO in

Notepad or Text Editor

1.First we are going to need to extract all the folders off of you Vista DVD, create a folder on your computer and extract all files and folders there.

2. Once everything is extracted navigate into <folder>\docs. Here there will be two sample unattended.xml files. we want to work with the unattend_sample.xml file

3. open the xml file with your text editor, we will see all the entries that you can use, you will have to sort through them and see what is needed for your situation ( i will go over a few that are needed for the Unattended)

4. this unattend file gives you alot of the options that are avialable for you do to with the unattended install for those who just want a unattended install and nothing more all you will need it this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
	<settings pass="windowsPE">
		<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
			<DiskConfiguration>
				<WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
			</DiskConfiguration>
			<Display>
				<ColorDepth>32</ColorDepth>
				<HorizontalResolution>1024</HorizontalResolution>
				<RefreshRate>60</RefreshRate>
				<VerticalResolution>768</VerticalResolution>
			</Display>
			<DynamicUpdate>
				<Enable>true</Enable>
			</DynamicUpdate>
			<ImageInstall>
				<OSImage>
					<InstallFrom>
						<Path>x:\source\install.wim</Path>
					</InstallFrom>
					<InstallTo>
						<DiskID>0</DiskID>
						<PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
					</InstallTo>
				</OSImage>
			</ImageInstall>
			<UserData>
				<ProductKey>
					<Key>ProductKey</Key>
					<WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
				</ProductKey>
				<AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
				<FullName>InsertName</FullName>
				<Organization>InsertOrg</Organization>
			</UserData>
		</component>
		<component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
			<SetupUILanguage>
				<UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
			</SetupUILanguage>
			<InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
			<SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
			<UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
			<UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback>
			<UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
		</component>
	</settings>
	<settings pass="specialize">
		<component name="Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
			<Identification>
				<JoinWorkgroup>Workgroup</JoinWorkgroup>
			</Identification>
		</component>
		<component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
			<InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
			<SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
			<UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
			<UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback>
			<UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
		</component>
	</settings>
</unattend>

things like Disc ID and Partition may have to change but if you only have 1 disk and are going to install it to the first partition, then it is already setup for you. in the installto section. For <Name> <Key> <Organization> you can change those values to what ever you want. For the installto location you can substitute the partition and disk entries for the following

<InstallToAvailablePartition>true</InstallToAvailablePartition>

This will install Vista to what ever partition is available

5. Once you have edited the file the way you want you need to, save the file as Autounattend.xml. Save this file to the root of the folder with all your vista files so that it sits with the setup.exe

6. Now we have to rebuild our DVD, I will use OSCDimg

Here is the command to use to rebuild the DVD

oscdimg -n –bc:<Vistafolder>\boot\etfsboot.com c:\<VistaFolder> c:\WindowsVista.iso

The first part -b is to make the CD bootable, the etfs file is located in the boot folder in the vista files you copied to your machine, the second folder is the folder that contains all the Vista files you copied from your DVD, the third is the location for the ISO to be placed

7. Burn ISO with your favorite DVD burning software then test, testing is a virtual Machine first would be suggested so that you don't go through DVD perfecting this.

8. Enjoy an Unattended Vista install

Leave feedback if you have any issues with this

One issue i have noticed is in a Virtual PC or Server 2005 the install will miss the WIM at teh X: location, on a actual CD this work though as PE takes X as its CD rom

Edited June 22, 2006 by fizban2

**McoreD** · June 23, 2006

Hi fizban2, much grateful to you for sharing steps.

Most important things I learnt was it has to be in root dirand has to be named autounattended.xml

The method is pretty straigh forward and I like it. One mod I had to do was getting rid of "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>" otherwise xml will not parse.

I am trying my best to get it working in VMware. Like you said, it doesn't seem to like loading Vista DVD from ISO image and it continuously gives this error:

for everything I have tried:

1. mounted ISO directly in VMware

2. mounted ISO in Real PC and told VMware to use that as a CDROM

with

1. <Path>G:\sources\install.wim</Path> (VMware CDROM drive letter in my case is G:)

2. <Path>X:\sources\install.wim</Path>

Thats's four combinations of tests and all fail to load in VMware.

I have faith that this will work in a Real PC but trying everything to load properly in VMware first.

Interesting project.

Cheers,

McoreD

Edited June 23, 2006 by McoreD

**T D** · June 23, 2006

Thx fizban2, now I'm not gonna bother getting bdd 2007 beta! Don't need it now.

@mcored Try virtual pc because some ppl (like me) find that windows setup says that there is no hard drive (Vmware only). But it works on virtual pc and bochs.

Edited June 23, 2006 by T D

**fizban2** · June 23, 2006

TD

i would still recommend getting the BDD 2007, it has the new Setup Manager that also for easier Manipulation of the unattend file. There are several dozen if not hundred other options that i did not include in this basic unattend file.

McoreD,

you got an error with the first line? that is odd... but any case i am getting the same error in VS 2005 or Virtual PC about the Missing wim image, but when i built and actually burned my DVD it worked fine... still trying to figure out why it is happening. My bet is the X drive isn't assigned in WinPE like it noormally is defaulty when you boot into it

**Jackrip5** · June 27, 2006

Does anyone of you already have experience with the BDD 2007.

I looked at it yesterday and it was indeed nice to integrate drivers. The integration of applications (which install from harddisk in the distribution folder - seems nice too) but how to integrate from the install drive, not a unc path or something like this. Any hint for that ?

Greetz

**fizban2** · June 27, 2006

if you mean installing from the install media (ie DVD or multiple Cds) then you will kick of the installation through the winpeshl.ini file, this needs to be created on your Windows PE disk, apply your winpe wim to a folder in the windows\system32 folder of the PE you would create the ini file

[LaunchApp] 

AppPath = %SYSTEMDRIVE%\windows\system32\cmd.exe 

[LaunchApps] 

"%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\imageX\ImageX.exe",

the file above is a very simple ini file, to kick of the command prompt after winpe starts and start imagex from here you could start the install of programs and such i will try and write up something more detailed a little later on this

**kev_147** · June 28, 2006

Thanks for all the info, will definately be looking into this

**Jackrip5** · June 28, 2006

Well thanks for this info. I'm surprised to see how well informed you already are in such short time of appaerance of the WAIK.

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