Unattended Installation straight from CD?

[Punkrulz]

Hey guys,

Welp lately I've been on the edge of learning new things I could do with Windows Installation. Last week it was learning how to Slipstream new service packs onto Bootable CDRoms. Now it's how to work with Windows Unattended Installation. I have noticed people here doing it using Floppy Drives. My boss just showed me how to do it... My next few questions:

1) Is it possible to directly have unattended installation run straight from the CDRom, no need for a floppy disk?

2) Is it possible to specify what services are enabled / disabled through Unattended Installation?

 

[LeeJend]

There was a thread on this a few weeks (months) back. One of the members had developed a self installing windows script? Try a search you should be able to find it. A file was attached with the necessary info.

 

[Punkrulz]

Already have been investigating this, apparently this does work on the XP Disk by placing the winnt.sif file in the I386 Folder when you make the CD Bootable... Now I just have to find that post regarding the services script of which you speak.

 

[cpugeniusmv]

i can help you with that

first, you have to make a .reg file containing the changes that need to be made to the registry to specify how each service starts up.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/registry.htm

next...

create a folder in the root of your CD called $OEM$ and put your reg file in there.

create another file called services.cmd and one more file called cmdlines.txt

open up services.cmd in notepad and enter this:

REGEDIT /S services.reg

replace services.reg with the name of your reg file.

next, open cmdlines.txt and enter this:

[COMMANDS]
"services.cmd"

now, in your winnt.sif file, in the [Unattended] section make sure OemPreinstall=Yes

this should make the reg file be merged with the registry during the last 10 minutes of the windows install

 

[a1ehouse]

For full details, 'ave a butchers 'ere ...

 

[Punkrulz]

Ok, ran into a situation. Made the CD, I have done everything I was supposed to do... copied it to a CDRW so I can always update it. I decided to use my other hard drive that was already in my system [wasn't being used] so I could test this out to see if this was working. During the Text Portion of the Setup, it was not finding some files, first one being something like cryptnet.dll or something of that sort...

What could the possibilities be that the files weren't going through? This CDRW has never been used before, not a scratch or even a piece of dust on it, brand new... but regardless it's skipping some files in the process. *sighs*

 

[cpugeniusmv]

hmm, i've definately not seen that before...

maybe try recopying your original CD to the hard drive again and redoing the slipstream would help.

 

[Punkrulz]

Looks like reburing it to a CDR worked fine... Next time I'm going to try another brand of CDRW... some issues arose during the Unattended Install, so that is something I am going to bring up in another topic. =)