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Vista unattended Guide

FireGeier
in Unattended Windows Vista/Server 2008

Featured Replies

  • Author

Hello Phorze!

Like

"cmd /c %AppsRoot%\Switchless\Office\Office.exe" ?

Yes, exactly. Look here for more details.

Regards,

Martin


Thanks Firegeier , great guide ;)

Another question, is it possible to get feedback if something goes wrong? Because somehow my application installs don't get installed at all, and i can't know for sure what went wrong.

  • Author

Hello Phorze!

AFAIK for the moment, there is no special log for application installs! But if I have probelms with my unattend I start with setupact.log and setuperr.log located inside %Windir%\Panther\Unattend GC.

In most cases I've got a hint there why something went wrong.

Regards,

Martin

Somehow i just can't get it to work, i have slimmed down Autounattend to find the problem but no avail.

Notes:

the Administrator account is made , but on oobe i get the standard dialog to make an account. If i use administrator as accountname, it gives an error saying the name is allready taken. When i pick user named "test" and log in, there is no other account than test , and test is the administrator account (what happened to "administrator"? :P)

None of the applications are installed, no errors during setup.

According to the SET command in cmd, no APPSROOT var is set.

By the looks of it just skipped the whole audit section.

All tests are done in VMware 5.3

Autounattend:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
	<settings pass="specialize">
		<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
			<RunSynchronous>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>1</Order>
					<Path>cmd /c FOR %i IN (C D E F G H I J K L N M O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) DO IF EXIST %i:\AppsRoot.txt SETX AppsRoot %i: -m</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>2</Order>
					<Path>%WINDIR%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /quiet /audit</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
			</RunSynchronous>
		</component>
	</settings>

	<settings pass="auditUser">
		<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
			<RunSynchronous>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>1</Order>
					<Path>cmd /c %AppsRoot%\Switchless\Office\Office.exe</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>2</Order>
					<Path>cmd /c %AppsRoot%\Switchless\Firefox\Firefox Setup 2.0.0.3.exe /S</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>4</Order>
					<Path>cmd /c %AppsRoot%\Switchless\MPC\MPC_addon.exe</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>3</Order>
					<Path>cmd /c %AppsRoot%\Switchless\VCP\vcpack.exe</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>5</Order>
					<Path>cmd /c %AppsRoot%\Switchless\Nero\Nero-7.7.5.1_dutch_lite.exe /VERYSILENT /USER="Roos" /COMPANY="None" /SERIAL="=removed="</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
				<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
					<Order>6</Order>
					<Path>cmd /c %WINDIR%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /quiet /oobe /reboot</Path>
				</RunSynchronousCommand>
			</RunSynchronous>
		</component>
	</settings>
<settings pass="oobeSystem">
		<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
			<AutoLogon>
				<Password>
					<Value>encryptedpassword</Value>
					<PlainText>false</PlainText>
				</Password>
				<Enabled>true</Enabled>
				<Username>Administrator</Username>
				<LogonCount>5</LogonCount>
			</AutoLogon>
		</component>
	</settings>
	<cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:f:/vistawork/dvd/sources/install.wim#Windows Vista ULTIMATE" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

setupact.log:

removed, see attachment (was a bit long) :rolleyes:

setuperr.log was empty.

setupact.txt

Edited by Phorze

  • Author

Hello Phorze!

Problem 1: Applications are not installed

I've just recognized that I haven't add the AutoLogon in auditSystem mode to the guide. So this was my mistake. Sorry for that. I've updated it now. So please check for the change:

You need to add Windows-Shell-Setup \ AutoLogon component to auditSystem pass. Than use Administrator as Name and set LogonCount to 5 or may be more if you need some reboots.

Problem 2: Prompted to create user account

You don't have the following part from basic Autounattend.xml inside your xml:

			<OOBE>
				<HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
				<NetworkLocation>Home</NetworkLocation>
				<ProtectYourPC>2</ProtectYourPC>
				<SkipMachineOOBE>true</SkipMachineOOBE>
				<SkipUserOOBE>true</SkipUserOOBE>
			</OOBE>

Note:

It's not recommended to use <SkipMachineOOBE> set to true, so please check out the Copy Profile section, if you want to create your own accounts and find out how to by pass welcome screen without using <SkipMachineOOBE>.

Regards,

Martin

Hi,

I have the same problem as Shampoo ( can't install windows on the selected location , Error 0x80300001), I've tried another harddrive, another computer, tried all the suggestions in this post , rebuild the autounattend.xml a few times, but the problem remains!

Here's m XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SetupUILanguage>
                <UILanguage>nl-NL</UILanguage>
            </SetupUILanguage>
            <InputLocale>0413:00000413</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>nl-NL</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>nl-NL</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>nl-NL</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <Display>
                <ColorDepth>32</ColorDepth>
                <HorizontalResolution>1024</HorizontalResolution>
                <VerticalResolution>768</VerticalResolution>
            </Display>
            <UserData>
                <ProductKey>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
                    <Key>XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX</Key>
                </ProductKey>
                <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
                <FullName>Extrasoft</FullName>
                <Organization>Extrasoft cvba</Organization>
            </UserData>
            <ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallFrom>
                        <MetaData wcm:action="add">
                            <Key>/IMAGE/NAME</Key>
                            <Value>Windows Vista HOMEPREMIUM</Value>
                        </MetaData>
                        <Path>install.wim</Path>
                    </InstallFrom>
                    <InstallToAvailablePartition>false</InstallToAvailablePartition>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
                </OSImage>
            </ImageInstall>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-Licensing-SLC-UX" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SkipAutoActivation>true</SkipAutoActivation>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <InputLocale>0413:00000413</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>nl-NL</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>nl-NL</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>nl-NL</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <Display>
                <ColorDepth>32</ColorDepth>
                <HorizontalResolution>1024</HorizontalResolution>
                <VerticalResolution>768</VerticalResolution>
            </Display>
            <AutoLogon>
                <Enabled>true</Enabled>
                <LogonCount>2</LogonCount>
                <Username>Administrator</Username>
            </AutoLogon>
            <OOBE>
                <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
                <NetworkLocation>Home</NetworkLocation>
                <ProtectYourPC>1</ProtectYourPC>
                <SkipMachineOOBE>true</SkipMachineOOBE>
                <SkipUserOOBE>true</SkipUserOOBE>
            </OOBE>
            <TimeZone>Romance Standard Time</TimeZone>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:d:/vistawork/dvd/sources/install.wim#Windows Vista HOMEPREMIUM" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

Thanks.

BTW, I've tried the "Windows Vista Deployment Step by Step guide" from Microsoft and that worked like it should.

  • Author

Hello extrasoft!

Please try to remove the following section from your Autounattend.xml:

<Path>install.wim</Path>

Regards,

Martin

If i use administrator as accountname, it gives an error saying the name is allready taken. When i pick user named "test" and log in, there is no other account than test , and test is the administrator account (what happened to "administrator"?

You cannot use Administrator for a User name, its a hidden account that can be enabled using <AutoLogon> as FireGeier suggested or here http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=84696. The other Admins are just that but not as powerfull as the Hidden Admin account

@ FireGeier,

removing the path section from the xml file works!

(I had tried to leave the value "path" blank from within WSIM, but that didn't work)

<ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallFrom>
                        <MetaData wcm:action="add">
                            <Key>/IMAGE/NAME</Key>
                            <Value>Windows Vista HomePremium</Value>
                        </MetaData>
                        <Path></Path>
                    </InstallFrom>
                    <InstallToAvailablePartition>false</InstallToAvailablePartition>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>

Strange, but it works perfectly like u suggested, thanks alot!

Edited by extrasoft

@ FireGeier,

removing the path section from the xml file works!

(I had tried to leave the value "path" blank from within WSIM, but that didn't work)

<ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallFrom>
                        <MetaData wcm:action="add">
                            <Key>/IMAGE/NAME</Key>
                            <Value>Windows Vista HomePremium</Value>
                        </MetaData>
                        <Path></Path>
                    </InstallFrom>
                    <InstallToAvailablePartition>false</InstallToAvailablePartition>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>

Strange, but it works perfectly like u suggested, thanks alot!

remove 

<Path></Path>

from .xml file vista doesn't like empty entries that may help

  • Author
@ FireGeier,

removing the path section from the xml file works!

...

Strange, but it works perfectly like u suggested, thanks alot!

Hello extrasoft!

Thanks for the feedback. Like urie said, Setup does not like empty tags inside xml. But what's realy strange is, that for some it's working with the path entry and for others it is not. :blink:

I think I will change the guide than, and remove the path section or add a note.

Thanks,

Martin

@Martin

You are very good indeed in explaining this in your tutorials, much easier to understand than MS. I have infact carried out many of what you have explained previously, mostly muddled through it trial & error. You have taken that out of it for most now.

Excellent work.

FireGeier

Kudos man it looks really awesome with the pics you got. Should be easy enough to understand for anyone.

Can anyone say Sticky, this covers it all nearly.

  • Author

Thanks a lot folks! :blushing:

Good to hear, that my free time seems not to be wasted than! :thumbup

Thanks again!

Regards,

Martin

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