Unattended installation guide continued...
3.) Creating the Windows XP unattend.txt answer file
While very similar to the Win2000 unattend.txt file, there are some subtle differences.
Open your text editor of choice and paste this text:
[Data]
MsDosInitiated= 0
UnattendedInstall= YES
[GuiUnattended]
AdminPassword= *
OEMSkipRegional= 1
OEMSkipWelcome= 1
TimeZone= "035"
[SystemFileProtection]
SFCQuota= 0x01h
[Components]
;accessopt= off
;chat= off
;fax= off
;dialer= off
;freecell= off
;hearts= off
;hypertrm= off
;indexsrv_system= off
;media_clips= off
;media_utopia= off
;minesweeper= off
;pinball= off
;reminst= off
;rstorage= off
;solitaire= off
;msnexplr= off
;spider= off
;zonegames= off
;msmq_ADIntegrated= off
;msmq_Core= off
[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents = YES
[Identification]
JoinWorkgroup= Workgroup
[RegionalSettings]
Language="00000409"
LanguageGroup="1"
[UserData]
ProductKey= "xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx"
ComputerName="The POS"
FullName="The Egyptian Magician"
OrgName="Home"
[MassStorageDrivers]
"WinXP Promise ULTRA100 TX2 (tm) Controller"="OEM"
[OEMBootFiles]
Ultra
ULTRA.CAT
Ultra.Sys
Ultra.INF
Txtsetup.oem
[Unattended]
AutoActivate= NO
CrashDumpSetting= 0
DisableDynamicUpdates= YES
Hibernation=0
DriverSigningPolicy= Ignore
FileSystem= LeaveAlone
NtUpgrade= NO
OemPreinstall= YES
OemSkipEula= YES
Repartition= NO
TargetPath= *
UnattendMode= FullUnattended
UnattendSwitch= YES
WaitForReboot= NO
Win9xUpgrade= NO
[Display]
BitsPerPel = 32
XResolution = 1024
YResolution = 768
VRefresh = 75
Save as unattend.txt to the same directory/drive i386 was copied to.
NOTE: Do not put unattend.txt into the i386 folder.
* This will install Windows to
C: and assumes you're doing a clean install and not an upgrade from WinNT/9x/2k.
Read the documents (
ref.chm) I mentioned above for dual-booting, repartitioning, and upgrading from an older OS.
Ref.chm also lists and explains all options for unattend.txt.
Remember, the lines with semicolons in front are inactive.
** If you do not have a SCSI card or IDE expansion card (or you do, but Windows already has native drivers for it), then delete the
[MassStorageDrivers] and
[OEMBootFiles] sections. Then set the
OemPreinstall line in the [Unattended] section to NO.
4.) Preparing the DOS installation
You should already have the bootable DOS floppy or CD-ROM with smartdrv.exe on it. Now, we're going to create a batch file for prepping the Win2k/XP installer executable (winnt.exe).
Open your text editor program and create a new document.
Paste the boldface text into it:
@ECHO OFF
format X: /q
Y:
CD I386
smartdrv.exe X+ Y+
WINNT /S:Y:\I386 /U:Y:\i386\UNATTEND.TXT
*Where
X is the destination drive and
Y is the drive where the i386 folder is located (both must be FAT32)
**/S specifies the location of the installation source
***/U specifies the location of the answer file- unattend.txt
****This is assuming that the destination drive is already formatted to FAT32. If not, you should be acquainted with FDISK or Partition Magic to do this as well as backing up any data on the destination drive before formatting.
Save this as win2k.bat or winxp.bat (depending on which OS you're doing this for) and save it to the same drive/partition the i386 folder was copied to.
Doin' it
Boot into DOS with your floppy/CD, navigate to the drive where you saved win2k(xp).bat and execute it from the command prompt.
Now just sit back and relax as Windows installs itself!
Optional Stuff
Installing Windows 2000 without Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Netmeeting, etc...
Thanks goes to
ol' man for finding and posting
the link to this info and of course the original author of this info.
You need to have a slipstreamed Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 CD to successfully complete this procedure.
Note, it will work with non-Service Pack 3 integrated CD's but you will have problems accessing the Add/Remove Windows Components application- it will not work properly until you upgrade to SP3, and you will also get an error every time you boot about TXFAUX.DLL not being loaded.
If you don't have a slipstreamed CD or i386 folder on your hard drive,
check out this thread.
Here's what you have to do.
Copy the i386 folder from the SP3 slipstreamed Windows 2000 CD to a partition or drive other than C: (if you plan to burn the end result, then copying to C: is fine, but you'll have to make a directory for the entire CD).
If you plan to do future installs of Windows 2000 from hard disk, then make sure the destination partition/drive is formatted to FAT32.
Now, download this file (make sure you have a
PROGRAM for decompressing zip files). Now extract all of the files in the archive you just downloaded to the i386 folder you copied to hard drive. Say "Yes to all" when it asks if you want to overwrite the files. And that's all you have to do if you're going to install Win2k from hard disk later using unattend.txt. If you want to burn a CD of the modified Windows 2000, then you can follow the slipstreaming guide from the link above (just skip to the part where it tells you how to make it bootable and then burn it). On my machine, I have a 5GB FAT32 partition where I keep the main folders for all of my operating systems (as well as any other programs I may need access to from DOS), for the easiest and fastest installation possible. Using this method, you can trim quite a bit of fat from the operating system. When I installed the modified Win2k, the total size it occupied was 414MB! That's not much larger than the default Windows 98SE installation size! I haven't encoutered any stability problems either. And checking the Event Log reveals only one error- it can't load Internet Explorer. But this doesn't interfere with anything and there is no nag prompt at bootup about it.
One thing to note is:
you will not be able to access Windows Update anymore. Even though Windows Update is now a separate program instead of a link to a webpage (like it used to be before Service Pack 3), it still requires Internet Explorer to be installed to run. The solution? You can find all Windows 2000 related updates
HERE in redistributable form. If you choose not to download any updates, I ask you to make one exception. Download the recently released patch which makes Win2k a little more tolerant of internet browsers besides Internet Explorer. You can get that patch
HERE.
You can install Internet Explorer 6 later. This can often make the operating system, not to mention Internet Explorer 6, more stable. To download the full IE 6 SP1, check out Shinma's link
HERE.
If you choose to burn the modified Win2k to CD...
Make sure you rename unattend.txt to winnt.sif and place it in the i386 folder before burning the CD (overwrite any previous winnt.sif if prompted). This will give you a Windows 2000 CD that can install itself completely unattended, but mind you, it will be much slower than installing straight from hard disk.
Win2000/XP: Adding drivers for your IDE expansion card or SCSI card (aka Mass Storage Controller) to Unattend.txt
NOTE: I only recommend doing this if Win2k/XP does not have built-in drivers for your card.
1.) In the i386 folder, create a new folder named $OEM$. Inside $OEM$ create a new folder called TEXTMODE.
2.) Copy the SCSI/IDE card drivers to the TEXTMODE folder (these drivers usually consist of an .inf, .sys, and sometimes a .cat file). There should also be a file called
txtsetup.oem that came with the drivers. Copy txtsetup.oem to the TEXTMODE folder as well.
3.) Now we have to edit txtsetup.oem to remove references to subfolders. Open txtsetup.oem with a text editor. You will most likely have to choose a program to open the file with as it won't be recognized as a text file by Windows. Notepad and Wordpad will open the file fine.
4.) In the [disks] section, remove any references to the floppy drive or subfolders (names with a backslash), or any other paths. For example:
[disks]
d1 = "Windows 2000 Driver Set v1.00", \w2kdsk1, \win2000\ultra160\
becomes:
[disks]
d1 = "Windows 2000 Driver Set v1.00", w2kdsk1
5.)
View this webpage to finish. Start reading at step 7. DO NOT follow Microsoft's directions up through step 6, they will leave the Windows installer unable to copy the drivers for your expansion card.
If you actually read all of this, you have a remarkable attention span!
Problems for anyone to tackle
1.) Leaving C: (or whatever drive you're installing Win2k/XP to) formatted to NTFS prior to a DOS install of Win2k/XP. The DOS boot floppy/CD won't see the drive, but will the Windows installer before it loads most of its GUI (i.e. within the first blue install screen)? That would make it much easier for someone who already has their C: formatted to NTFS and doesn't want to go through the hassle of reformatting just to do this procedure.
DIY: Fully unattended installs of Windows 2000 and Windows XP
Linear Mode
