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Vista UnAttended Setup Review


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About three weeks ago, I ordered some new Dell systems and got my hands on some new OEM Vista DVD's. The same week, I received my Vista Upgrade DVD's from some Dell purchases that I made at the end of last year. Having the perfect unattended XP install, I figured Vista would be so much easier because of the changes MS made to the setup process. Well, in many ways, it was easier, but in some it is just a big pain the rear end. First off, I was naming my xml config file autounattended.xml because I copied the name from a post here on the MSFN forums. It wouldn't work to save my life, then I went DUH, the actual filename should be autounattend.xml. Then I had the dreaded "new user prompt". These systems will be on a Domain, so I have absolutely no reason in the world to create a new gimped Admin account. Around this time I also began using WAIK. After taking every suggestion and idea that I found on the Internet, the thought occurred to me that maybe it's my OEM DVD. Sure enough, the OEM DVD performs a sysprep automatically, which forces OOBE to ask for a new user on reboot. Once I figured that out, I switched to my Upgrade DVD since it doesn't have all of the OEM junk on it. Things started looking up.

The only battle left was to figure out what was causing the unattended install to fail. Well, first off, even if WAIK verifies your xml file as good, the <diskconfiguration> section can still be screwed up. I had a 160GB HD that I wanted to make the first partition 50GB and active, then create the second partition and extend it to the rest of the HD. Sounded good in theory, and it works well....once you get the xml *exactly* like it wants to be. My next problem was that I had to track down specific errors in the *verified* xml. The first one was the tag <EnableFirewall> in the PE portion. This would cause an error EVERY time. So I took that out. Next was the <ShowMediaCenter> tag, so I took that out. Let me just say this, if the XML verifies and setup sees something it doesn't recognize or isn't supported by the particular version of Vista that is being installed, setup should just skip that section and continue running, NOT error out. To do so is just plain STUPID.

My next issue came when trying to install Applications. I first tried the "Distribution Share" method and didn't like it at all because I didn't want to copy the contents to the HD before installing them. I then ran across FierGier's post about setting up a global path variable and installing that way. Off I went to try that method. It wouldn't run the applications to save my life. Then I read about others with the same issue and saw that someone used a run.cmd file and everything worked. Third time's the charm right?? The run.cmd method worked great for me.

Next, all I needed was to get my tweaks into the "default user" profile. Lot's easier said than done. Unlike good ole XP which installs reg entries ran from RunOnce.exe into the default user hive, Vista has other plans. To get changes to the default user, Vista says we have to sysprep the system. Sysprep will disable the builtin administrator account (which we worked our behind off to enable in the first place without creating a new account), and copy all the changes to the default user using <copy profile>. Upon reboot, you get to answer all of the OOBE questions again and create an account, but they can be answered with another xml answer file. But wait...did you just say we have to create an account *AND* the builtin administrator is disabled again?? This is where I call bulls*** and say *having* to use sysprep is not an acceptable method for getting changes to the default user profile. First off, like I said before, I do NOT need to create a gimp admin account and I shouldn't have to. I already answered all the OOBE questions previously in the setup and shouldn't have to go thru them again simply because I had to run sysprep. After some thought, I decided on a much older method of achieving my goals. Instead of having to use sysprep to get my changes to the default user profile, I copy a reg file with my tweaks to the default user desktop. Then I copy a cmd file to the default user's Start Menu/Startup. This cmd file fires up, imports my regtweaks, does whatever other cleanup routines I need, then deletes itself. It runs for all new users created and I didn't have to mess with sysprep.

I give the new Vista method of unattended installs 8 out of 10. It is simpler than the XP method but is still a little buggy and waaay too finicky. Sometimes the USB stick drivers don't get loaded so nothing custom gets ran so you have to reboot and try it again. Sometimes it will just fail for no reason and a simple reboot is required to fire it off again. Sometimes it will complete the "copying files" section and show a green check mark and just hang there forever (well at least for overnight, I didn't want to wait to see if it was actually forever). Again, a reboot will fix it and it'll go on its merry way the next time.

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