Scenario 2 – Running Imagex to deploy Windows 7.Īs mentioned you don’t need to run setup.exe to deploy windows 7, you can boot into a WinPE 3.0 environment and use tools like imagex to apply an image. The sample file is for the x86 version of Windows 7 Enterprise when using KMS for activation, joining a WORKGROUP (no Product Key specified in the answer file). In the sample files for this article you will find a minimal, but fully automated answer file for this scenario. The most common location is a removable media like a USB stick. To have setup.exe pick up an answer file, we just need to named it AutoUnattend.xml and store it in one of the paths that setup.exe looks for answer files in. If you boot the default Windows 7 DVD – Setup.exe starts automatically. Scenario 1 – Running setup.exe to deploy Windows 7.
An answer file for x86 cannot be used for 圆4 and vice versa. Please also notice that you need different answers files depending on what platform (x86 and 圆4) you are deploying. The settings that you have to define also depends on if you are using setup.exe to deploy Windows 7, or just using an image utility like ImageX (or ghost, or whatever) to apply an image. The premium tool for editing the unattend.xml file is Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) from the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). This means that depending on what type of Windows 7 setup you are doing, you need to populate different sections in the answer file. This is because different parts of the setup are reading settings from different passes. The Unattend.xml for Windows 7 (and Vista/2008/2008R2) are divided into sections, or configuration passes. The core setup of Windows 7 can be automated by creating an answer file, the Unattend.xml file. Understanding Unattend.xml automation in Windows 7 So here is the text to get in touch with your inner deployment geek… Why use a standard solution that 300.000 other people on this planet are already using when you can re-invent what they have done and build it your self. This is also your chance to challenge the 20+ people strong deployment team at Microsoft, showing them that you are better building deployment solutions than they are.
That being said, if you rather is a hardcore geek who wants to build everything yourself from scratch, instead of using the standard tools that Microsoft recommends, this article will help you create your own answer files to automate the core Windows 7 setup.
If that’s your goal, you should download the free Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010, and use that as your deployment solution. If your goal is to very quickly have a nice fully automated Windows 7 setup, including drivers, application etc.
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