Unattended Format C:, Skipping Post-Setup Messages

[Nephilim]

Let's face it: I am a newbie to unattended installations. But as I am very interested in that topic I decided to create a whole DVD-R with the stuff I usually need.

By now, after one week of work, I actually am nearer to the end than I had ever imagined, I wrote my own batches and created a whole lot of .mst, .sif and ."stuff" files. BUT now I got pretty much stuck into details. And that's where you folks might help me

My first HD is divided into two partitions: C: which is my complete system and D: which are all "My Files", MP3s and stuff like that. What I'ld like my setup routine to do is the following:

Start the DOS-like Setup, Format C: and install Windows there again.

I crawled through a hell of a lot of documentations and FAQs but I couldn't find that I-don't-care-if-there-is-something-installed-or-not-just-kill-that-partition-and-reinstall flag, that I so desperatly need.

The second thing that, according to the documentations, should work, but does not, is to skip these annoying "Your screen's resolution has been adjusted", "Please Register to Microsoft", "Enter atleast one User" screens. Those screens that appear right after the setup and right before you see the desktop for the first time.

Is there any chance, you could help me with that

That's for anyone trying to help a poor scriptkid out of trouble.

[devil270975]

Do you wanna elaberate a little more

Post your winnt.sif code so ppl can have a look to see what your doing wrong

Lee

[Nephilim]

Sorry for the inconvenience Devil!

It's rather hard to find a winnt.sif at the momentary chaos, but I just found one. Taking a closer look, I would say, this is nearly a "copy & paste" version of MSFN.org's unattended guidance. But as I told you, I tried several Versions. All in all I must have installed WinXP about 10 times now and don't have a clue, what I did wrong. By the way, one thing I tried was changing TargetPath to C:\Windows but that wouldn't work either.

;SetupMgrTag
[Data]
    AutoPartition=1
    MsDosInitiated="0"
    UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
    UnattendMode=FullUnattended
    OemSkipEula=Yes
    OemPreinstall=Yes
    TargetPath=\WINDOWS
    Repartition=No

[GuiUnattended]
    AdminPassword=****
    OEMSkipRegional=1
    TimeZone=110
    OemSkipWelcome=1

[UserData]
    ProductKey=****
    FullName="Nephilim"
    OrgName=""
    ComputerName=WAMP

[Display]
    BitsPerPel=16
    Xresolution=800
    YResolution=600

[RegionalSettings]
    LanguageGroup=1
    Language=00000407

[Identification]
    JoinWorkgroup=Myst

[Networking]
    InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

[GuiRunOnce]
    %systemdrive%\install\xp.cmd

[Components]
    msmsgs=off
    msnexplr=off
    freecell=off
    hearts=off
    minesweeper=off
    pinball=off
    solitaire=off
    spider=off
    zonegames=off

[Shell] 
    DefaultStartPanelOff=Yes
    DefaultThemesOff = Yes

[Nephilim]

I finally found a method to Autologon to WinXP, thanks to the Autologon thread and Guya's post (man these chinese dudes seem to know everything )! That's fantastic

BUT one problem remains: How do I format C: during the an unattended setup and install windows at this partition?

I honestly have no idea and hope that somebody is able to help me.

Thanks in advance

[Aaron]

Try AutoPartition=1 and Repartition=Yes

I'd suggest trying this on a test PC in the case of accidently overwriting the partitions on your primary PC

There are also some more references to this in ref.chm (in your deployment tools), such as:

FileSystem = ConvertNTFS or LeaveAlone

Reading further, I checked AutoPartition again and found:

AutoPartition

Installs Windows to the first available partition that has adequate space for a Windows installation and does not already contain an installed version of Windows.

It seems this will only take effect if Windows doesn't exist on C:\

[Nephilim]

AaronXP

It seems this will only take effect if Windows doesn't exist on C:\

That exactly my problem. You wouldn't have an idea how to solve that?

Currently I am thinking about starting to DOS an formating C:\ and using the settings you wrote then. Any idea if that 'll do?