Unattended Windows Installation Guide

January 9, 2010 by: admin

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Welcome to the beginner’s section of the guide. This portion is intended solely to get your CD updated and create a basic Unattended disc. What this means, is that you get your CD/DVD updated with the latest service packs and hotfixes and automating the majority of Windows Setup.

What you will need:

* A Windows CD. This portion of the guide is applicable with Windows 2000 through Windows 2003.
* The Service Pack you wish to use for your operating system. You will need the NETWORK INSTALL. It’s the larger of the two options to download. Windows 2000 SP4 - Windows XP SP1a - Windows XP SP2
* The Deployment tools for your operating system. This guide will cover the build for Windows XP SP2. Those can be found here

When testing your CD/DVD, instead of burning countless test discs, you could use a Virtual Machine. They’re slightly slower, but you don’t have to reformat your computer just to test your CD/DVD.

Step 1 - Creating a Local Source

This step is perhaps one of the easiest things to do, and as with all easy things, there are many different ways to accomplish it.

I’m just going to cover two methods: Manual, and Automated.

The Automated Way

We’re going to use a program called nLite. It requires the .NET Framework, so if you don’t want that on your computer, skip down to the Manual section.

So let’s get started.

* Put the OS CD into your CDROM drive. If the Autorun menu starts, feel free to close it. We’re not going to use it.

* Now let’s start nLite. And continue untill you get to this screen.

Click the “Browse” button.
Select the CDROM drive with your OS CD inside of it.
Now, because you have selected a READ-ONLY source, i.e. the CDROM, another box will come up just like the first. This is where your CD will be copied to.
Click OK and when finished, go ahead and exit out of nLite.

The Manual Way

I prefer this method myself, primarily because I like doing things myself. We’re going to manually copy our CD to the hard drive.

Put the OS CD into your CDROM drive. If the Autorun menu starts, feel free to close it. We’re not going to use it.
Open up My Computer, then Right-Click on the CDROM with your CD in it, and select Open.
You can either, click and drag selecting all the contents of your current location, or simply press <CTRL><A>
Right-Click on your mouse, and select copy, or press <CTRL><C>
Now navigate to your hard drive, and create a new folder called whatever you want. Just remember its name.
Open that folder, Right-Click on your mouse, and select paste, or press <CTRL><V>

From this point on, for the sake of ease, I will call the destination of your copied source XPCD.

The next step is to slipstream your copied source with your service pack.

Slipstreaming the Latest Service Pack

As with the making of the local source in Step 1, this step also has two ways of accomplishing the goal.

The two methods are the Manual way, and the Automated way using nLite.

The Automated Way

Start up nLite. Just keep clicking next till you get to this screen:
Click the Browse button, and select the folder you copied your source to in Step 1. I’ll be using C:\XPCD
After selecting the folder click till you get to this screen:
Click the Select button, and navigate to your download of the network service pack file, and click Open.
A couple boxes should come open with progress bars.
The above is for the extracting of the service pack, and the below for the integration of the service pack.

Just wait untill they all close and you’re back at the nLite screen. If you receive this box:

feel free to click OK.
Back in nLite, the area just above where you clicked Select, should now reveal your Operating System and what service pack level it is at.
Exit out of nLite, and continue to Step 3.

The Manual Way

This way is going to walk you through the steps necessary, as if you didn’t have nLite and wanted to type in the commands necessary.

Click Start, and select Run. If you don’t see it on the start menu, simply press <WINDOWSKEY><R>
Now click within the box where it says your filename, and type:
```
-s:C:\XPCD
```
Where C:\XPCD is the path to your Operating System local source. Note however, I did NOT point it to the I386 directory. It MUST be the directory I386 is within.
You should see these boxes appear on screen:
Click OK on the final box, and continue to Step 3.

Updating Setup Source with Latest Updates

At the time of making this guide, there’s probably approximately 25-35 MB of critical updates on Windows Update for Windows. Nobody likes to download them, especially if you’re on 56K when you’re eager to get all your essential applications installed and making a full backup before properly using your OS. Thanks to the silent install switches, we can now include 35 MB of hotfixes on the CD and get them installed all in one go. This section covers two parts - Getting the Hotfixes and Installing the Hotfixes.

Getting the Hotfixes

You’re probably wondering how to find out which exact hotfixes you need for Windows, there are 4 ways to do this, excluding using XPCREATE which downloads them for you:

» Method 1 - An up-to-date list

An updated and complete list of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Critical Updates are available at this forum thread This list is updated, usually within a day or so, when Microsoft releases new updates.

» Method 2 - Windows Update

Set up a base install of Windows XP SP2 (with no updates installed), and go to Windows Update. Take note of the 6 digit numbers on each Critical Update, e.g. “329441: Security Update for Microsoft Windows”.

After you have taken note of all the 6 digit numbers on every security update, you need to attach them to the end of this URL: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=xxxxxx replacing the xxxxxx with the numbers you wrote down.

Then download from the link provided at the Knowledge Base Article (some articles will link to a Technet Security Bulletin). Repeat for the other updates shown on Windows Update.

» Method 2a - Windows Update

Have windows download manager download and install every hotfix and or patch. After everything has been installed and the pc been restarted or shutdown for the updates to install, go to c:\windows and look for the windows update.log it will have all the updates that were installed and their http address. Which you can slowly copy one by one from this file and later download with free download manager into any folder you wish.

» Method 3 - Windows Update Catalog

Set up a base install of Windows XP SP2 (with no updates installed), and access Windows Update. . Click on the “Personalize Windows Update” link on the left pane, Check the “Display the link to the Windows Update Catalog” under the “See Also” check-box under “Set options for Windows Update” list in the right pane, Click the “save settings” button in the top right of the right pane.

Then click on the “Windows Update Catalog” link under the “See Also” list in the left pane, click “Find updates for Microsoft Windows operating systems” in the right pane, select OS (Windows XP SP2) in the Operating-system-list and your OS language in the Language-List, and then click search in bottom right of the right pane.

You are now presented with links to “Critical Updates and Service Packs”, “Multi-Language Features” and “Recommended Updates”. Open each link and add what components/updates you want and click the “Go to Download Basket” link when you are done. Select the path to download the updates in (Must be an existing folder) and click on the “Download now” Button. The updates will now be downloaded and categorized in separate folders, automatically on your own hard-drive.

Note: The Windows Update Catalog is not as accurate as Windows Update itself.

» Method 4 - HFNetChk

Instead of accessing Windows Update, grab the freeware HFNetChk Utility. As it explains on its site: “HFNetChk.exe is the multi-threaded command-line tool you can use to assess a computer or selected group of computers for the absence of security patches.”.

Install HFNetChk and open up Command Prompt (Start > Run > CMD). Change to the directory where HFNetChk is installed (Usually C:\Program Files\Shavlik Technologies\HFNetChk\), and type: hfnetchk -v

Make a note of the Knowledge Base Article numbers and look them up as explained in Method 2, or use the Technet Security Bulletin numbers (MSxx-xxx) and look them up using this URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MSxx-xxx.asp replacing the xx-xxx with the numbers shown in HFNetChk.

» Method 5 - Windows Updates Downloader(WUD)

First you need download the program from the Official Site.
Download the lastest version and install it. Then you need download a list with all hotfixes.In same site, scroll down to see all different list, select it in your language, platform and OS for then download it.
In your hard disk open the list file (.ulz) and automatically the list will be installed.
Finally you need open WUD and select the updates to download.

I think this is the best method to download all hotfixes and critical updates, because it is really effective and fast.

» Conclusion

Its a lengthy process, but it certainly does pay off in the end. It will be much easier to maintain your hotfix list in the future since only a hotfix or two is released every second Tuesday of the month. (That’s Microsoft Patch Day!). Hotfix updates will be announced on the frontpage of MSFN.org as soon as they are released.

Slipstreaming the Latest Service Pack

» The Automated Way

* Start up nLite. Just keep clicking next till you get to this screen:

Click the Browse button, and select the folder you copied your source to in Step 1. I’ll be using C:\XPCD
After selecting the folder click till you get to this screen:
Click the Select button, and navigate to your download of the network service pack file, and click Open.
A couple boxes should come open with progress bars.
The above is for the extracting of the service pack, and the below for the integration of the service pack.

Just wait untill they all close and you’re back at the nLite screen. If you receive this box:

feel free to click OK.
Back in nLite, the area just above where you clicked Select, should now reveal your Operating System and what service pack level it is at.
Exit out of nLite, and continue to Step 3.

The Manual Way

This way is going to walk you through the steps necessary, as if you didn’t have nLite and wanted to type in the commands necessary.

* Click Start, and select Run. If you don’t see it on the start menu, simply press <WINDOWSKEY><R>

Now click within the box where it says your filename, and type:
```
-s:C:\XPCD
```
Where C:\XPCD is the path to your Operating System local source. Note however, I did NOT point it to the I386 directory. It MUST be the directory I386 is within.
You should see these boxes appear on screen:
Click OK on the final box, and continue to Step 3.

/INTEGRATE Method

Of the manual methods, this is most likely one of the simplest. All we’re going to do is execute the hotfixes we downloaded previously, and add the /INTEGRATE switch to them.

Open up the Run dialog box.
Click browse, and select your first hotfix file.
Now click into the box, and type:
```
 /integrate:C:\XPCD
```
Change C:\XPCD to the directory you copied your source to in Step 1.
Click OK.
When the process has finished, a box similar to this should appear:
Continue repeating these steps untill you have processed all the hotfixes you have downloaded.

Automating this process via a batch file

This batch file will automatically slipstream hotfix EXEs into your XP SP2 source. Place all of the updates into the same folder as the batch.

TITLE Windows XP SP2 Slipstreamer brought to you by www.MSFN.org
CLS
@echo off
ECHO.
ECHO Slipstreaming Windows XP SP2 Updates
ECHO Please wait...
FOR %%f IN (*.exe) DO "%%f" /Integrate:C:\XPCD
ECHO.
ECHO Slipstreaming Completed!
ECHO.
pause
EXIT

And of course, replace C:\XPCD to where your source is.

SVCPACK.INF Method

In this section of the guide, we’ll help you set up a hotfixes installation that will run in the GUI-mode part of Setup. The hotfixes installation will execute at the “13 minutes left” stage, which will take somewhere between 5-20 minutes to complete - depending on your system specifications.

(I know this page seems very long, but it only takes 10 minutes to do everything explained. Its just very detailed!)

» Setting up your Hotfixes and the svcpack.inf file

Copy all your downloaded hotfix files into this directory: C:\XPCD\i386\SVCPACK\

All hotfixes must be renamed to an 8.3 naming format (no more than 8 characters in length). For example, filenames such as Q819696_WXP_SP2_x86_ENU.exe and WindowsXP-KB824146-x86-ENU.exe should be renamed to Q819696.exe and KB824146.exe in that order respectively.

Below are the necessary SVCPACK.INF entries for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 respectively.
Open Notepad and copy and paste the following below:

Warning: For the field “Signature” on the “[version]” section, please replace “CHANGE_THIS” with “$Windows NT$”.
It’s a screenbug, due to wiki interpretation of Caps & special characters.

;Windows 2000
[Version]
Signature="CHANGE_THIS"
MajorVersion=5
MinorVersion=0
BuildNumber=2195

[SetupData]
CatalogSubDir="\i386\SVCPACK"

[ProductCatalogsToInstall]

[SetupHotfixesToRun]
Q330994.exe /Q:A /R:N
Q819696.exe /Q /O /N /Z
KB824146.exe /Q /O /N /Z
qchain.exe

;Windows XP
[Version]
Signature="CHANGE_THIS"
MajorVersion=5
MinorVersion=1
BuildNumber=2600

[SetupData]
CatalogSubDir="\i386\SVCPACK"

[ProductCatalogsToInstall]

[SetupHotfixesToRun]
Q330994.exe /Q:A /R:N
Q819696.exe /Q /O /N /Z
KB824146.exe /Q /O /N /Z
qchain.exe

;Windows 2003
[Version]
Signature="CHANGE_THIS"
MajorVersion=5
MinorVersion=2
BuildNumber=3790

[SetupData]
CatalogSubDir="\i386\SVCPACK"

[ProductCatalogsToInstall]

[SetupHotfixesToRun]
Q330994.exe /Q:A /R:N
Q819696.exe /Q /O /N /Z
KB824146.exe /Q /O /N /Z
qchain.exe

Save this as svcpack.inf in C:\XPCD\I386\. You must delete svcpack.in_ in the I386 directory otherwise Windows XP Setup will not use the svcpack.inf file.

The entries shown in [SetupHotfixesToRun] are just an example. All the hotfixes you have downloaded, renamed and copied to the SVCPACK folder should be added under this section in svcpack.inf in numerical order. The images below will help to know what syntax should be used:


Files that look like this should be installed using the /Q /O /N /Z switch. We’ll call them Type 1 Hotfixes	Files that look like this should be installed using the /Q:A /R:N switch. We’ll call them Type 2 Hotfixes

DOSNET.inf

Open up DOSNET.inf in the i386 directory with Notepad and add the following text into the blank space you see in Notepad, (this can be put anywhere really):

[OptionalSrcDirs]
 SVCPACK

QCHAIN.exe
Don’t forget to add QCHAIN.exe to your SVCPACK folder. This utility will ensure that the highest file version is installed if there is a scenario where 2 hotfixes contain the same exe/dll file with different version numbers.

Download and extract the file to get the actual QCHAIN.exe inside the compressed file. Copy QCHAIN.exe to the Update folder then add QCHAIN.exe to the very last line after all your hotfix entries in svcpack.inf. It does not require any switches.

Adding Windows Media Player 9/10

If you wish to include the latest Windows Media Player version, they are both available from this site as silent install packages, below are the links. These are for ENGLISH platforms ONLY.

Adding this to SVCPACK.INF is simple.

Open up your SVCPACK.INF file, and add an entry BEFORE any other hotfixes, simply with the name of the file you download below. That’s it!

Download: Windows Media Player 9 | Windows Media Player 10

End Results

If you have done it all correctly, there should be no Critical Updates listed on Windows Update!

nLite Method

nLite can also be used as a hotfix slipstreamer, however it can only be used with the LATEST hotfixes, and RyanVM’s Hotfix Pack.

» Adding Hotfixes to be slipstreamed

Start up nLite click next till you reach this screen:
Right now everything is selected, deselect everything besides Hotfix Integration and click next.
After clicking next, you’ll be brought to this screen:

Click browse, and select your local setup source you created in Step 1, then click next.
The next screen is where you will select what hotfixes to integrate into the CD.
Click the insert button, and select one of your downloaded hotfixes. Continue untill you select all your hotfixes. When you’re done, click next.
Click Yes, and nlite will begin its business.
When the next button at the bottom becomes active, click it, and then you’ll be at nLite’s final screen. Click Finish, and you’re done.

Creating a Basic Unattended Setup

An answer file is a way to script the answers for a series of graphical user interface (GUI) dialog boxes. An answer file also tells Setup how to interact with the $OEM$ distribution folders and files you create, and supplies Setup with all of the information that the end user would provide during a typical Windows Setup.

With the XP SP2 Deployment Tools you downloaded, simply extract them to a folder, or double click on the Cab file. The only files you will need is setupmgr.exe and ref.chm:

The Setup Manager (setupmgr.exe) is a wizard-based answer file creation utility, so you won’t come across too much difficulty in using this application. To start you off, make the following choices:

New or Existing Answer File: Create New
Type of Setup: Unattended Setup
Windows Product: Which ever version you’re preparing for
User Interaction: Fully Automated
Distribution Share: Set up from CD (ignore the message about IE customizations, they actually work!)

Having done that, accept the Licence Agreement, then fill in all the boxes as you would during Windows XP Setup. If you come across a section that you don’t understand, then ignore it. Windows XP will use whatever default option there is for that section.

When you’ve finished, it creates a file called unattend.txt. Since we are going to run Setup from a CD we need to rename this to WINNT.SIF. Be sure that the file DOES NOT end up as WINNT.SIF.TXT. It MUST NOT end in .TXT

I want to manually control my partitioning and formatting options…

If you prefer to manually choose a partition during text-mode setup with full control on choice of file system, then make sure you have these lines set as they are under the [Data] and [Unattended] sections in winnt.sif:

[Data]
AutoPartition=0

[Unattended]

FileSystem=*

If you want to automate this process with exact specifics on drive letters, partition sizes and file systems, you may want to consider using Bart’s PE and diskpart.

Where does the winnt.sif file go?

Copy winnt.sif to the I386 directory within the local setup source folder you created in Step 1.

» Additional Information

Refer to the Reference page, or read through ref.chm to see how you can add extra options to your winnt.sif file, such as asking Setup not to install Windows Messenger 4.7 and MSN Explorer 7.

Finalizing and Testing the CD

Once you’re happy with your Unattended XP CD preparation, double check to see if everything is correct, including the winnt.sif answer file, all the batch files, svcpack.inf, and anything else you might have added.

It is very likely that you will have several mistakes that have gone unnoticed, so it’s a good idea to test your installation in a Virtual Machine. If you prefer to not use a Virtual Machine be sure to use CD-RW/DVD-RW discs to test before burning to a single-burn medium.

Using Microsoft’s CDImage Tool to create the ISO

CDImage is a command-line driven application developed by Microsoft to create an ISO image from a directory of files and folders. We’ll be using the CDIMAGE GUI to better illustrate the switches, especially since it’s easier to determine which switches you wish to use. The CDIMAGE GUI is just a frontend for the command-line tool. Read more about CDIMAGE GUI in the reference section.

Alternatively, doing it the long way round, you can burn all the contents of C:\XPCD\ to a CD-R, using one of these guides: MSFN Windows XP SP2 Guide | The Elder Geek Windows XP SP2 Guide

Notes

Make sure you burn the ISO using Disc-at-once in your burner options, rather than Track-at-once. Because this usually helps resolve bootability issues or file copy errors.

Using software such as WinISO, UltraISO or any other variant to create/edit your bootable ISO image is not recommended as there is a risk of corrupting your ISO file.