Help a newbie with an unattended network install

[The_Wippuh]

I've finally got into the world of unattended installs over the network. I install a ton of computers and have mainly been using images using a network boot cd and drive image. My boss just bought numerous new servers and I'm going to turn an soon to be unused file server into a RIS server. However, I think getting this process down may help my overall experience. Hopefully from here I can go through the rest of the tutorials on this site and really learn what's going on!

Here's what I've done, please help me figure out what is going wrong.

I have a laptop that is going to be used as a floater to test on.

- created a share on the network

- create a primary, active fat32 partition on the laptop

- load network driver from boot cd that maps the shared drive to T:

- go to my shared network drive and run winnt

This all goes to plan easily, but now is where I start having problems. I have a floppy in the drive with both winnt.sif and winnt.bat, but the install goes just like it does with a cd install.

My winnt.bat file contents...

@rem SetupMgrTag

@echo off

rem

rem This is a SAMPLE batch script generated by the Setup Manager Wizard.

rem If this script is moved from the location where it was generated, it may have to be modified.

rem

set AnswerFile=.\winnt.sif

set SetupFiles=\\servername\ffievet\winxp\whistlerdist\I386

\\servername\whistlerdist\I386\winnt32 /s:%SetupFiles% /unattend:%AnswerFile%

My winnt.sif file contents...

;SetupMgrTag

[Data]

AutoPartition=1

MsDosInitiated="0"

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

AutomaticUpdates=yes

[unattended]

UnattendMode=FullUnattended

OemSkipEula=Yes

OemPreinstall=Yes

TargetPath=\WINDOWS

WaitForReboot="No"

[GuiUnattended]

AdminPassword=(long encrypted pass)

EncryptedAdminPassword=Yes

OEMSkipRegional=1

TimeZone=20

OemSkipWelcome=1

[userData]

ProductID=G04W4-YW4R3Z-M0NK3Y-G0CUB-B13S1

FullName="Network Administrator"

OrgName="Company :)"

ComputerName=XPIMG

[setupMgr]

DistFolder=T:\ffievet\WinXP\whistlerdist

DistShare=whistlerdist

[identification]

JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP

[Networking]

InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

Anything wrong? Should my winnt.sif work? Do I need a switch with winnt.exe?

In addition, can I add someway to automate the changing of the drive from fat32 to ntfs?

Thanks!

btw, nice board, works really well with firefox. None of the others seem to.

[The_Wippuh]

Hrmm... it would seem that the reason winnt.sif doesn't work is because it's for cd-rom installs! Thanks!

So, all I needed to do was run this from the proper folder.

winnt /u:t:\wippuh\winxp\whistl~1\unattend.txt /s:t:\wippuh\winxp\whistl~1\i386

Now, for my next question. Winnt will not see my ntfs drive so I have I have format the drive with fat32 before I install. How do I change the drive format to ntfs in the answer file? Is that possible?

[InTheWayBoy]

You should just make the jump to RIS, it's not quite the same as what you are trying to do. If properly configured you can:

• Boot from the network with PXE
  
• Install to a blank drive with no previous paritions, and you can create and use NTFS partitions too
  
• It handles the shares and image distrobution
  
• It authenticates against AD for security
  

If you are concerned about messing with your production servers, then grab a copy of vmware server or ms virtual server or virtualbox (All free virtualization software) and load that up as your RIS server. It's dead simple really, you just install the RIS component (Through Add/Remove Programs, Windows Components) and then you run it's wizard to setup the first image. It will require a CD of the OS you are wanting to install, at which point it will create the correct file structure in the correct place.

From there you can follow most unattneded info, it supports answer files and $OEM$ folders and adding extra drivers. But, as you seemed to have found out, network/RIS answer files are slightly different than CD or floppy answer files. Luckily the RIS install provides default answer files that work well with RIS.

Also, since it's not loading setup from DOS like you are it's much more efficient and capable.

There is a sub-forum on here specifically for RIS installs...lots of good info in there!

[iTwins]

Hrmm... it would seem that the reason winnt.sif doesn't work is because it's for cd-rom installs! Thanks!

So, all I needed to do was run this from the proper folder.

winnt /u:t:\wippuh\winxp\whistl~1\unattend.txt /s:t:\wippuh\winxp\whistl~1\i386

Now, for my next question. Winnt will not see my ntfs drive so I have I have format the drive with fat32 before I install. How do I change the drive format to ntfs in the answer file? Is that possible?

[Unattended]
	Unattendmode = FullUnattended
	OemPreinstall = YES
	TargetPath = WINXP
	Filesystem = ConvertNTFS

"FileSystem = ConvertNTFS"