Hi all,

Going through me books slowly but sureley, one thing that I just CANT get right is unnatended installs, I follow the wizard through to create a new answer file, allow it to copy everything from the cd onto the server, and all looks as it ought to do, I then boot from a network boot disk on the remote pc, map a drive to the shared distribution folder, run winnt and all goes through, BUT it doesnt automate the install correctly, it seems to go throught the text based part ok, but during the gui part, it asks me all the normal questions, including the cd key which I put in the answer file after the wizard had made it, can anyone offer any pointers as to what I might be doing wrong? I've read it in my books but as far as I can tell I'm doing it right.

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in the answer file the cd-key should have a - every 5 characters that will fix that problem

as for the rest of the problem post the answerfile in here and let us see if we can't figure it out

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this varies on your current OS you can only upgrade to window 2000 server from windows NT server 3.51 and 4.0. insert your windows 2000 server cd and search for unattend.doc.

good luck with your studies im currently doing 70-215 from my MS-press and sybex books

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add this to your answer file

[Productid]
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

and make sure that you point to the answer file correctly when specifying the
/s<sourcepath> switch

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sorry correction about specifying the answer file with the /s option...
specify the answer file with /u:answer_file option and don't forget to specify the path to the answer file...

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quote:

---

Originally posted by lenee
add this to your answer file

[Productid]
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

---

Should be :
[userdata]
productid=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Johnny5Alive


Should be :
[userdata]
productid=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

---

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I agree i'm wrong(i checked it out at http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/bo...pchap/3870a.asp)...but just for the note.I did a Remote Install last week when setting up the training centre(12 machines) at my company. I had specified the productid (remboot.sif)exactly like how i had mentioned and to my surprise i never had to come back to any of the machines until it said "setup has completed".Hmm..i wonder whether it works either ways. I'm going to try a unattended tomorrow or day after(experiment) specifying like how i had mentioned and see whether it will work.I'll let ya all know.

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Hi all,

Thanks a lot for all the replies, unfotunately due to other commitments I have been unable to reply, howver, I still have the same problem

all goes well until the gui part of the installation, I get asked to accept the license agreement, then it goes on to detect hardware etc, and then I still get asked for the product key, I ran the setup from a batch file, which is pasted below, as is my answer file.
SERVER is the name of my server, CALVS is the name of my mini domain, and test2k is the name of the pc that will hopefully recive the unnatended install. The unattend.bat is a the one created by setupmgr but modified a little.

unattend.bat:

set AnswerFile=.\unattend.txt
set SetupFiles=\\SERVER\win2kd
winnt /s:%SetupFiles% /unattend:%AnswerFile%

unattend.txt:

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

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=FullUnattended
OemSkipEula=Yes
OemPreinstall=Yes
TargetPath=\WINNT

[GuiUnattended]
AdminPassword=pass
AutoLogon=Yes
AutoLogonCount=1
OEMSkipRegional=1
TimeZone=85
OemSkipWelcome=1

[UserData]
ProductId=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx \\xx'd out for posting here
FullName=testpc1
OrgName=course
ComputerName=testpc1

[TapiLocation]
CountryCode=44
Dialing=Tone
AreaCode=xxxxx \\changed to post here

[RegionalSettings]
LanguageGroup=1
Language=00000809

[SetupMgr]
DistFolder=C:\win2kd
DistShare=win2kd

[FavoritesEx]
Title1="test.url"
URL1="www.test.com"

[Branding]
BrandIEUsingUnattended=Yes

[URL]
Home_Page=www.calvsplace.cwc.net
Search_Page=www.google.com

[Proxy]
Proxy_Enable=0
Use_Same_Proxy=1

[GuiRunOnce]
Command0="rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n \\server\epson"

[Identification]
JoinDomain=calvs
DomainAdmin=administrator
DomainAdminPassword=xxxxx \\changed to post here

[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

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have you followed the book step by step?
what books are you using for your studies? (MS_Press, New Rider, Sybex e.t.c.)

have you checked the 2k server CD whether you meet the hardware comatability list.(There should be a file on the CD called HCL.txt)

from what i can gather i ddi an unattend install but i did it from a 9x platform to 2k server and from research it does not support that kind of upgrade. You can only upgrade to 2k server if u have windos NT server 3.51 or 4 otherwise you will need to do a lean installation.

you cannot upgrade from DOS, windows 9x 2k pro or NT workstation.

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