Need Help with Windows 2000 Unattended Setup

[Teliger]

Is anyone familiar with making a Windows 2000 Unattended Setup floppy?  I have made the disk (winnt.sif) and it works great to do a fully unattended setup.  The problem I am having is trying to find out how to have it load additional drivers, a logo, or anything other than what the parameters in the winnnt.sif file tells it to do.  I am not doing network installations, just normal installations.  What I am doing is making a floppy with the winnt.sif and booting from the Windows 2000 CD.  I\'ve tried placing files in the distribution folders but nothing copies from it during installation... and I\'m starting to believe that the distribution folders are only for network installations only?  

Anyone know the solution to get the extra drivers to load during installation.... or the logo?  I would also like to be able to have the unattended setup complete other tasks as well, so any information you can give me is greatly appreciated.  

I\'m baffled.

[Twinkie]

Use OEM to add drivers or programs.  Keep in mind that the OEM folder moves on a 2000 install.  Due to an error M$ made and will not be fixing.

OEM goes in the I386 folder for Dos installs

OEM goes in the same folder that has the i386 folder for CD boot installs.  For single boot CD\'s that should be the root of the CD.

Hope this helps,
More info is available at my site.

[Teliger]

Thanks for replying!

So this IS something that can be done on a single CD boot then. My folder structure on the floppy is  win2000dist$oem$ (then a bunch of folders under that. That\'s the way Windows set it up for me.  I don\'t even see a i386 folder in the distribution folders.  

So should my distribution folder on the floppy be
i386OEMDRIVERS or should it be just OEMDRIVERS?

I think I need to somehow tell the winnt.sif file where to find the drivers.  I\'ve tried it before with the current folder distribution structure and the setup worked but nothing from the folders was copied.

[Twinkie]

I believe that the win2000dist folder is your I386 folder.  The winnt.sif file must say to use oem though.  You should also move the OEM folder to the top of the CD. (ie same location as the win2000dist folder)  It sounds like you are using the network distribution setup.  The OEM error occurs for both CD and Network install.  Read up on the OEM install.  Too many options to cover in one post.  Check either the OEM and unattend section at my site or search M$ Knowledgebase.  More info at M$ but can be a pain to find relevant info.

Click my name to head to my site.

[Teliger]

Actually, I\'m not doing network installs.  What I\'m doing is setting the CD-ROM as the 1st boot device and putting the Windows 2000 CD in the CD drive to boot from.  Then I have a floppy with a winnt.sif file, a winnt.bat file, and the distribution folder.  I may have screwed it up cause most of the information I see on the topic is for network installations, but that\'s not what I am trying to do.  

I will go through the winnt.sif file one more time to see if I can find where to tell it to get the drivers from and how to do it... and I will try putting the OEM folder on th eroot of the floppy.

You keep referring to the distribution folder being on a CD... not sure why.

Went to your site too. Some great info there!

Thanks again!

[Fjellu]

Maybe start with the basics. You need a bootable CD with additional driver, programs, logos etc. You can not do it with the files on a floppy. You have to make your own modified W2K CD.

Copy everything from the W2K CD to a folder on your harddrive (C:W2K). Put a folder named $OEM$ in the root (C:W2K$OEM$) Check out Twinkies site for structure http://www.tech-hints.com/oem.html#2. All your extra files should be within the $OEM$ Folder structure.

Use the setupmgr.exe to make an unattend.txt. Open it in notepad and make any other options necessary. For more information about the answer file parameters, see Unattend.doc file provided in SupportToolsDeploy.cab on the Windows 2000 Professional operating system CD. Change the name of unattend.txt to winnt.sif and put that only file on a floppy.

Burn your customized CD. There are also the possibility to slipstream SP2 into the CD and even other post SP2 updates

[Teliger]

Well I made the W2K CD like you said with all the additional goodies... but it wont boot from the CD I made.  It boots from the original W2K CD but not mone, even though the root is identical... Is there something I need to do to make the CD bootable?

[Fjellu]

If your new CD does not boot it is propably because you failed to make it bootable. Which software have you used to burn the CD?
Many sites claim that only CDRWin makes foolproof bootable w2k CD:s. You can find one guide right here: http://www.thetechguide.com/win2kbootcd/
Maybe you forgot the boot.bin file. This file is needed to make the CD bootable.