Autounattended.xml automation stops at Region and Kybd questions-V1909

hsehestedt, I will be out for much of the day, but when I get back, I'll close out this thread and call it good. Thank you very much for your extensive Hyper-V testing...I will try that process to see how it goes. Regardless of the results, the Hyper-V piece is out of the separate issue from what you had help me solve earlier with the automation process and getting past the Region/Keyboard screen.

juankuga, I need to roll out at the moment, but I can give more detail when I get back. The summary is to go to hsehestedt's early post in which he includes his autounattend.xml file. Put this file in the root of your bootable installation thumb drive for Win 10 1909, and boot from it....it should work. However, become familiar with the settings inside and how they work...you might want to adjust a few of them such as time zone, user name, password, region, keyboard, daylight savings, etc.

For much more control and future updating, follow his directions to Kari's tutorial which explains how to use Windows SIM to create your own autounattend.xml.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

-Spike

@juankuga,

First, welcome to TenForums! Did you try the answer file I provided in post #16 of this thread? Give that a shot and if you still have any difficulties, please feel free to post back here and I'll be happy to help.

@spikeman256: If you close out the thread, and run into any further issues, please do feel free to post back with any further issues. If you prefer, you are very welcome to PM me as well.

One more thing: I don't know if you are headed down the same trajectory that I was when I first started exploring automated setup of Windows, but it led me to explore some of the following topics:

How to update my Windows ISO images with the latest Windows updates
How to create bootable media with both x64 and x86 editions of Windows that could boot on both BIOS and UEFI systems
How to add drivers for all my systems to my Windows ISO images
A whole lot more

I created a document that covers all of these topics showing how to do all these step-by-step. It was really designed mainly as notes for myself on how to accomplish all these tasks. I even wrote a program that automates much of this.

If you have any interest in any of this, let me know and I'll be happy to share it with you. If you ever have insomnia, it doubles as a great remedy for that

hsehestedt said:

@juankuga,

First, welcome to TenForums! Did you try the answer file I provided in post #16 of this thread? Give that a shot and if you still have any difficulties, please feel free to post back here and I'll be happy to help.

Thank you guys ! I got it working after looking at the one you posted. Thanks again .

@juankuga,

Good news! Glad to hear you got it working.

BTW, if you are using the Windows ADK to create your own answer files, the new version of the ADK and Windows PE addon were released just recently which include support for Windows 10 2004.

You can download them here if you don't already have them:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ed/adk-install

hsehestedt, thanks for all of that. You are completely correct about my path...a week ago, I was so eager to just get past the Region/Kybd screen....then I realized the autologon was potentially a different issue, and then I wanted that ability as well. In the last couple of days, I have wondered about including (slipstreaming?) updates into my installation, and although my installation already works with 32 and 64 bit, and did not know if a single boot media could handle BIOS *and* UEFI.

I have not read anything about SysPrep yet, but I was also considering creating an image (if possible) that would include Chocolatey, 5 or 6 small apps (Chrome, Firefox, VLC, etc), as well as a variety of Windows settings (taskbar adjustments, system tray adjustments, control panel view, desktop background color, screensaver settings, etc).

I felt that if I went to all of the trouble to create a thumb drive image with the latest Windows release (1909 or 2004, etc) and all of the updates to that point, that I might as well try to capture all of my other basic settings as well. At first I was concerned that an image created on 1/1/20 would be out of date by, say, 4/1/20, but if I included Chocolatey with my image, then I could quickly update all apps with a simple command.

So, yes, I would find a lot of value in your notes and methods.

juankuga, I'm glad to hear it fixed your problem. As hsehestedt mentioned, if you haven't done so, take a look at Windows SIM...it takes awhile to go thru the steps, but it allows extensive control when creating an autounattend.xml.

-Spike

Okay, attached is a ZIP file that includes the following:

1) My Windows unattended setup documentation.
2) The program that I wrote to automate a lot of the functions in the documentation.
3) The source code for the program.
4) Documentation for the program.

A few notes:

First, I wrote the program mainly as an aid for myself. I'm not a professional programmer so the code is probably what any professional would call "spaghetti code". It's also written in a simple BASIC like language. I've included the source code so that you can see that there is nothing malicious in the code. I've included the compiled executable but if you want to make any modifications and compile it yourself, download the 64-bit version of QB64 from QB64, load the .bas file, and compile it.

If you have any questions regarding either the docs or the program, please let me know.

Thanks for sharing your work. I just dloaded and unzipped it, and I'm just getting started reading thru the steps...I'll report back.