[NickAtNight]

I like to have a WINNT.SIF on my XP CD that bypasses the "enter your product key" screen and nothing else.

With XP SP1 this WINNT.SIF worked perfectly:

[UserData]
ProductKey="xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx"

[Data]
MSDosInitiated=0
UnattendedInstall=Yes

This doesn't work on SP2 - the screen comes up asking for a product key. The key I am using is valid - it is my company's volume licensing key. I am using XP volume licensing edition (corporate edition) and I slipstreamed the service packs in myself.

Anyone else run across this?

Or better yet, anyone know how to make this work with SP2?

Thanks!

[ronnie_t]

My guess is that you should remove the quotes from ProductKey="XXX.....XXXX"
I Ran setupmgr.exe and the result was an unattend.txt WITHOUT the quotes.

[NickAtNight]

ronnie_t, on Sep 21 2004, 03:26 PM, said:

My guess is that you should remove the quotes from ProductKey="XXX.....XXXX"
I Ran setupmgr.exe and the result was an unattend.txt WITHOUT the quotes.

that sounds like a good suggestion - I will try it now and post back here

thanks!

[NickAtNight]

nope - didn't work

anyone have any other ideas?

thanks!

[argon007]

Maybe your product key is on the blacklist of Microsoft...

If you have the BSID key which is following, you can't install the Windows XP SP2.

XXXXX-640-0000356-23XXX
XXXXX-640-2001765-23XXX
XXXXX-640-643718x-23XXX
XXXXX-641-309376x-23XXX
XXXXX-642-064580x-23XXX
XXXXX-642-464364x-23XXX
XXXXX-643-334701x-23XXX
XXXXX-644-081772x-23XXX
XXXXX-644-451265x-23XXX
XXXXX-644-874896x-23XXX
XXXXX-644-933704x-23XXX
XXXXX-644-962396x-23XXX
XXXXX-645-833254x-23XXX
XXXXX-645-994962x-23XXX
XXXXX-646-031843x-23XXX
XXXXX-646-104081x-23XXX
XXXXX-646-105103x-23XXX
XXXXX-647-318838x-23XXX
XXXXX-647-592029x-23XXX
XXXXX-647-677834x-23XXX
XXXXX-648-301691x-23XXX
XXXXX-648-819992x-23XXX
XXXXX-649-106765x-23XXX
XXXXX-649-941392x-23XXX
XXXXX-650-292312x-23XXX

[NickAtNight]

argon007, on Sep 21 2004, 06:36 PM, said:

Maybe your product key is on the blacklist of Microsoft...

If you have the BSID key which is following, you can't install the Windows XP SP2.

nope, none of those. as i mentioned, this product key is a legitimate key, issued to the company i work for

[argon007]

NickAtNight, on Sep 21 2004, 06:02 PM, said:

argon007, on Sep 21 2004, 06:36 PM, said:

Maybe your product key is on the blacklist of Microsoft...

If you have the BSID key which is following, you can't install the Windows XP SP2.

nope, none of those. as i mentioned, this product key is a legitimate key, issued to the company i work for

then why the screen ask you input the product key?!

[Alanoll]

you never mentioned whether or not if you pressed enter at that screen if it continues....

Also, double check your key, perhaps ONE character is wrong.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

It is the quotation marks man I just did mine with the sp2 deploy tools and no quotes it worked fine...

PS>I also made a bat file that point to winnt32 and tells it to look for winnt.sif so I can do one click re-installs or upgrades through windows.

[koszopal]

@nick
try in this way

Quote

[UserData]ProductID=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

koszopal

[NickAtNight]

argon007, on Sep 21 2004, 07:23 PM, said:

then why the screen ask you input the product key?!

it's coming up with a screen and asking me for the product key because it's not reading the key out of the WINNT.SIF

when it comes to that screen, the boxes for the key are blank. if I press next, I get a message that i must type a valid product key

[NickAtNight]

kelsenellenelvian, on Sep 21 2004, 08:38 PM, said:

It is the quotation marks man I just did mine with the sp2 deploy tools and no quotes it worked fine...

PS>I also made a bat file that point to winnt32 and tells it to look for winnt.sif so I can do one click re-installs or upgrades through windows.

it's more than just the quotes. like i mentioned in my first post, i am trying to do a minimal WINNT.SIF. these three lines work perfectly in a SP1 CD, but not with SP2

Quote

[UserData]ProductKey=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

[Data]
MSDosInitiated=0
UnattendedInstall=Yes

with this WINNT.SIF on a SP1 CD, the install is just like a CD with no WINNT.SIF at all, except it skips the Product Key screen.

[NickAtNight]

Alanoll, on Sep 21 2004, 07:23 PM, said:

Also, double check your key, perhaps ONE character is wrong.

i have

[NickAtNight]

koszopal, on Sep 22 2004, 12:56 AM, said:

@nick
try in this way

Quote

[UserData]
ProductID=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

koszopal

I assume you mean with only that one line in the WINNT.SIF (one line in one category that is). I have tried that - that doesn't work either

Thanks!

[Daimao]

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=FullUnattended

is this in your winnt.sif?

[NickAtNight]

Daimao, on Sep 22 2004, 03:30 PM, said:

[Unattended]
    UnattendMode=FullUnattended

is this in your winnt.sif?

no, and I don't want it in there

I am trying make a general purpose XP installation CD. I only want to avoid the hassle of typing a product key each time. I use this CD to install many machines - some join a domain, some don't. some have static IPs some have dynamic. user name and organization are almost always different. sometimes i have to specify device drivers (F6). sometimes i am trying to repair a damaged installation of Windows.

you get the idea

[Daimao]

Then you should have it on =Hide
Then it will only show the pages that you didn't fill in
so if you fill in the serial,it wouldn't show that screen but if you didn't fill in a workgroup/domain,it'll show the screen and ask for one

[NickAtNight]

kelsenellenelvian, on Sep 21 2004, 08:38 PM, said:

It is the quotation marks man I just did mine with the sp2 deploy tools and no quotes it worked fine...

I thought I'd add a bit more info - I have been at this a long time with no success. IMO SP2 and WINNT.SIF is buggy - the installer is just not reading the WINNT.SIF the way it's supposed to.

If you go through the SP2 setupmgr.exe from the DEPLOY directory and provide only the product key and choose "Provide Defaults" for "User Interaction level" this is the unattend.txt you get

Quote

;SetupMgrTag
[Data]    AutoPartition=1
    MsDosInitiated="0"
    UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
    UnattendMode=ProvideDefault
    OemPreinstall=No
    TargetPath=\WINDOWS

[GuiUnattended]
    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
    OEMSkipRegional=1

[UserData]
    ProductID=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
    Fullname=""    OrgName=""

[Identification]
    JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP

[Networking]
    InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

A lot of this i just don't want. I don't want autopartitioned hard drives. I don't want to skip regional. I don't want the workgroup specified. I don't want the networking settings specified. I don't want to specify the target directory. so you clean out those entries and you come up with this:

Quote

[Data]    MsDosInitiated="0"
    UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
    UnattendMode=ProvideDefault
    OemPreinstall=No

[UserData]
    ProductID=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

the only problem is if you use this as your WINNT.SIF the setup skips many of the screens I need to access. it skips the text welcome screen (where you can choose to repair or install). it skips the license agreement (well that's ok). it skips the 15 second reboot pause (again ok - just explaining how even tho i didn't add those lines, it does it anyways). once in GUI mode, it does skip the product key screen (that's good!) but also skips the networking screens for typical/custom settings as well as workgroup/domain settings

if you take it down to the bare minimum... (without the two entries in DATA section setup crashes)

Quote

[Data]    MsDosInitiated=0
    UnattendedInstall=Yes

[UserData]
    ProductID=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

it doesn't skip any screens, but also ignores the product key

again, on an SP1 CD this worked. on an SP2 CD is doesn't

i have made about 15 CDs now trying to get this to work and I am about to give up I guess, unless anyone else has an idea

thanks to everyone here for their time in trying to help!

[NickAtNight]

Daimao, on Sep 22 2004, 04:14 PM, said:

Then you should have it on =Hide
Then it will only show the pages that you didn't fill in
so if you fill in the serial,it wouldn't show that screen but if you didn't fill in a workgroup/domain,it'll show the screen and ask for one

see my loooong post above this one

basically, i chose "ProvideDefault" instead of "Hide" but same difference, since I am not giving any of the settings in the WINNT.SIF besides the product key

and there is a big difference in the way setup acts when you have a "UnattendMode=" entry and when you don't. with that entry in there, a lot of screens are skipped, no matter what you set it to

[NickAtNight]

kelsenellenelvian, on Sep 21 2004, 08:38 PM, said:

It is the quotation marks man I just did mine with the sp2 deploy tools and no quotes it worked fine...

ok you were right! it is quotes - bu it's quotes on the other two entries that were messing me up also

i'll make a new thread with the exact details for anyone who tries to do the same thing and starts tearing out clumps of hair like i have!

thanks, kelsenellenelvian - you were right on the money