Unattended Via Serial Number

[Eagle1]

Hey everyone,

I spent a good deal of time trying to make this work. Now that I have it working, I thought I would share it with everyone. I would like any comments or suggestions you may have.

My goal was to make an unattended XP install disk that would automatically install XP and apps according to which computer the disk is in. I found a handy freeware called compname which can read the bios serial number and change the ComputerName via scripting. I can't remember where I found compname, but if you run the file you can see the author's info and a Paypal link for donations.

Using compname and WPI, I can now put the disk in my computer or my wife's and walk away. It then installs only the software needed according to which computer is being setup.

I am using VMware workstation 5. According to compname, the serial number in VMware is VMware-56. The following examples are based on the serial number being VMware-56.

This checks the serial number and if it matches changes the variable COMPUTERNAME. It does not actually change the ComputerName.

for /f "tokens=1" %%i IN ('support\compname /d ?s') do if %%i==VMware-56 set COMPUTERNAME=VMware

This is the code that actually changes the ComputerName. It isn't actually changed until the system reboots. However, we did change the variable in the first step.

support\compname /c %COMPUTERNAME%

This was created for systems that you don't want to have OEM information. You can copy the OEM folder to create different setups.

IF %COMPUTERNAME%==VMware cmd /c start /min cmd /c %cddrive%\$OEM$\SUPPORT\OEM\OEMLink.cmd

This runs the VMwareTools setup found in these forums if the PC has the serial number VMware-56. I believe this only installs on VMware machines anyway, but this adds an extra check.

for /f "tokens=1" %%i IN ('support\compname /d ?s') do if %%i==VMware-56 cmd /c start /min cmd /c %cddrive%\$OEM$\SUPPORT\VMwareTools.exe

I think the rest is fairly self explainatory. If no UserName is set, then the UserName will be WinXP User. If you setup a user in WPI, then this will automatically run the WPI script without intervention. Otherwise, the standard WPI setup will run.

Download Here

[Note] I tried uploading the file here. It says I can upload up to 4.88 mb, but the I get an error stating the file is greater than the limit. The file is only 169Kb and I have no file attachments in my control panel. I will try to leave it on the above server as long as I can.