Unattended installation of Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, Seven 32 and 64 bits, French and English for different computers Overview Because I wanted to manage the automatic installation of Windows and applications for different computers and with different versions of the operating system and software, I tried to organize everything as you will see in the zip file. The organization is probably not the most interesting but you will find several answer files (used for automatic installation of Windows), registry tweaks,... as examples. I made a script, Buildcfg.bat that helps me preparing the set of files needed for the installation of a specific configuration. this script helps me to choose the architecture, language, operating system... I want to install. It copies the files from the chosen operating system (from an original installation CD or DVD that I indicate while running the script) and then copies the files from the CFG directory that corresponds to the configuration I have chosen. And depending on what it will find in some scripts of the CFG directory, it will copy the applications needed to be installed automatically from the CMPNENTS directory. At the end, you will get several directories : DVD1, DVD2, DVD3... You can burn all the content of these directories on DVDs or you can gather their content in a single directory that you must call setuproot and place at the root of a partition of the target computer. To start the target computer, you can use just the first DVD, that should use automatically the content of the setuproot directory when needed or you can start the target computer using Windows PE, prepare the partition where you want to install Windows and launch the script Install32.bat from the setuproot directory. Note that for an installation of Windows 2000, XP, 2003, you need to prepare a correctly formated and active partition using the diskpart tool before launching Install32.bat (otherwise Windows setup might fail). The organization of the CMPNENTS directory is easy : each subdirectory contains an application with a script file (usually called Install.bat) that runs the installer with the rights unattended parameters. The organization of the CFG directory is more complicated but is logical (or it should be!) : _ in the first sublevel, there are the Common, x64 and x86 directories. The Common directory contains all that is common to all configuration whatever the architecture, language, operating system, computer. The x86 and x64 directories contain specific things depending on a 32 or 64 bits architecture. _ in the x86 or x64 directories, you will find the Common, EN and FR directories. The Common directory contains all that is common to the corresponding architecture (respectively x86 or x64) whatever the language, operating system, computer. The EN and FR directories contain specific things depending on the language of the operating to install (English or French). _ in the EN or FR directories, you will find the directories for the different operating systems. _ in the next sublevel, you will find the directories for the different editions of the operating system. _ in the next sublevel, you will find the directories for the different service packs. _ in the next sublevel, you will find the directories for the different computer on which you would like to install Windows. _ in all Common and computers directories, you will find DVD1, DVD2, DVD3 directories. _ in the DVDs directories, you will find a CONFIG directory, that contains reg tweaks and scripts, a CMPNENTS directory, that contains scripts indicating the applications to install and that will contain at the end the applications, and depending on the operating system, an I386 or Sources directory. What happens during the installation : _ First you boot the target computer using Windows PE for example _ You prepare (format and make active) the partition where you will install the operating system (sometimes you need also to prepare the MBR of the hard drive, use for example the tool bootsect.exe that you can find with Windows Seven and run from Windows PE) _ You put an external hard drive containing the setuproot folder that you prepared using the script Buildcfg.bat and you run the script Install32.bat. _ Install32.bat will launch Windows Setup that will copy some files. At the end of the copy, you might need to restart manually the computer and then the automatic installation of the operating system will really start. _ During the installation, Windows Setup should copy some files as indicated in the answer files we prepared (winnt.sif for Windows 200, XP, 2003 or autounattend.xml for Vista, 2008 or Seven) and launch a script at the the end (SetupComplete.cmd and RunOnce.bat) to copy a script Logon1.bat in the Startup folder of the Start Menu that will automatically be launched at the first logon. This script will launch the installation of the applications and restart the computer when needed. Just before restarting, it will be replaced by the script Logon2.bat that will continue installing applications and apply customizations (by launching the different scripts Cmpnents1.bat, Cmpnents2.bat,... or Config.bat). Key files : _ BuildCfg.bat _ Winnt.sif _ autounattend.xml _ SetupComplete.cmd _ RunOnce.bat _ Config.bat _ Cmpnents1.bat, Cmpnents2.bat,... _ WinVars.bat _ Robocopy0.bat Key folders : _ I386 _ Sources _ $OEM$ Key applications/tools : _ Windows Setup _ Windows PE _ Bootsect _ diskpart _ robocopy