Windows 2000 unattended setup steps

[bbarnard]

I'm just getting ready to set up an Windows 2000 unattended install. I suspect the steps will be slightly different than the nicely documented XP example. Can anyone point me to an earlier post with any sort of steps taken while setting up unattended win2K?

I'll certainly keep a log of what I do and post that when I have things working properly

Thanks,

Bill

[jcbrief]

I know there are others out there who know more them I, but I will let you know what I have so far.

I'm playing with my win2k unatended install now. I'm still fidling with my applications now. The following links are some of what I've used. But I did a lot of reading to get things where they are now.

Universal 2K/XP/2K3 IE6/DX9/WMP/Hotfix Slipstreamer

http://hfslip.org/

Windows 2000 SP4 updates for use with HFSLIP

http://users.telenet.be/tc76/winup/_win2k.html

DriverPacks project

http://www.driverpacks.net/

I used AutoIt for the programs that didn't have silent switches

http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/

I found the Unatened section quite usesfull also

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/

CMDLINES.TXT Explained

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/14/

take not of the quotes around the simple commands, I missed it and it took me quite awhile to figure that simple thing out.

I first tried using HFSLIP to copy files, but later switched back to the $OEM$ method

$OEM$ Distribution Folders

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/18/

I used "RunOnceEx" to install my applications.

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/31/

> [beta] User Creation Tool, for (un)attended user creation

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=70510

Cmenu has also helped with my applications and their switches.

http://uawiki.org/CMenu/

for testing I already had "Microsoft VirtualPC 2004"

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/20/

I hope this helps,

Joe

[bbarnard]

Thanks for the help. I suspect there's lots of info behind all those links! And it probably took you a while to figure out all the different things you needed to know to make your system work properly.

To be honest, I'm considering spending my time on a different unattended install method using the software at http://unattended.sourceforge.net/. I'm already a pretty good perl programmer, and I can use my linux boxes to host the samba shares where the (shudder) Windows distros will live. There's a certain irony I like in that. Also I've written some reasonably complex cmd scripts to run on windows in the past; I thought I had sworn them off for good...

I'll record all your links though. I may want to build an unattended cd as well; it would be very nice to have such a thing to take to client sites.

Thanks again!

Bill

[johnrm]

Hi there, if this is for you personally, or for your admin jobs in-house, you could try using the nlite tool.

http://www.nliteos.com/guides.html

Works very well and is quite easy to use.

You can then look into the text files it creates to teach yourself some of the changes made.

Cheers,

[Oleg_II]

Hi

It's not different at all! The most important differences:

1. You can't use OEM folders structure to add files in %PROGRAMFILES% and %PROFILES%. Use SFX archieves for this.

2. There is no REG.EXE in W2k distro. Get one separatelly or use NIRCMDC.EXE if you add regestry keys through command line during Unattended.

3. The serial number in WINNT.SIF for XP and W2k is written a bit different.

There are probably some more minor differences in WINNT.SIF like with installed components - for example W2k doesn't have firewall and you can't turn it off through WINNT.SIF but if you have this setting it won't hurt - nothing will happen.

No other big differences were found

And of course use: HFSLIP!

Edited October 13, 2006 by Oleg_II

[dirtwarrior]

Nice to have all this info in one place