Selling Unattended Installation skills?

[Philster]

I work for a large charity and have developed an unattended install that we use nationwide, installing Windows 2000 and various apps, updates, network client etc. It's been extremely popular amongst the support guys, saving shedloads of times and money as now we can get users to pop the Cd in and press a key and wait and lo and behold, it is done, rather than getting in a car and going to do it yourself.

What I was wondering, is whether it is possible to commercially exploit in some way, knowledge gained of Unattended Install.

For example, I have shown the Unattended Install to friends at other organizations and they have been mightily impressed (and compared to some of the amazing stuff on this site about it, what i have done is very basic!). If they already have licences for Windows and any other application they might want to include in the installation, would it be possible to sell on my 'skills' etc to them without this being a problem for Microsoft or anyone else? e.g. my skills tweaking CMDLINES.TXT, WINNT.SIF, reg tweaks etc and create them a Unattended bootable CD?

Cheers

Phil

[un4given1]

I would assume that as long as you give them the original software along with the new CD and it works with their legal key it should be legal. You are selling a service, not software. That is of course if someone wants to pay for it and they don't feel like doing it themselves.

[Drewdatrip]

You may run into some issues.

For example:

MAny applications that you would be including would or may be considered freeware for individuals, but not ment for distrobution or profting.

Also modifying and then repackaging MicroSoft's windows Xp for your gain probly would be against MS EULA, they would probly want some portion of your profits, or not want you to do it at all.

I think you will run into a legal nightmare personally.

Now if you devolped it for a company that you worked for, i cant see any problems, it would just be saving yourself some time..plus many companies have been doing this for year, including one that i work for...

|Drew|

[demlak]

well.. knowing ALL about unattended install is still such a low level, who the hell want´s to pay for something like that? i mean.. a MCSE has sometimes problems to get a job, and MCSE is a very much higher level =) if u know someone who will pay for unattended installs, let me know =)

[Philster]

From what I have discovered, Unattended Install isn't something that is used a great deal, and yes, whilst it's possible to learn, not everyone has the time or inclination to do so and hence, if someone could come along and do it for them, they might be tempted to do that.

For example, everyone could create their own databases if they want to, the tools are there, but more often that not buy packages to do the job, rather than develop their own.

On to your point Drewatrip, I think it's a case of the company proving they have the licences for what ever software they would want to include, then I would effectively be simply amending a few files like the Winnt.sif, cmdlines.txt and some reg tweaks........... would this be considered fraud though?

Or I could even provide them with ONLY the winnt.sif, cmdlines.txt and the tweaks and some instructions as to what to do with them. Again, as long as they have some licences for Windows and the additional apps that is the crucial matter I would imagine.

[demlak]

"companys" have there own administrators.. and firms/company´s without an extra admin, don´t pay for such a thing.. they come here and learn it =)

what i wanted to say with my last posting, was, that no one will pay for a person/service that is easy to learn and/or could be done from any admin-person still in the company