WDSUnattend has me by the b@lls

[Planehazza]

Urgh, I've read and read and read, but I cannot my x64 WDSUnattend.XML to work properly. I've managed to get it all automated except for the DiskConfiguration part. It still prompts to me to wipe and create partitions. If I do, installation fails saying it can't install to the prepared partition. I force reboot, do it again and I still get prompted to select the disk, but installation proceeds.

 

What have I balls'd up for W10 LTSB deployment with my WDSUnattend (applied to x64 architecture on the

 

 

en-US

0809:00000809

en-GB

en-US

en-GB

0

true

1

Primary

true

true

false

NTFS

OS

C

1

1

OnError

Kenton

********

WDSService

0

1

 

 

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Apologies for the formatting getting messed up...

Edited August 10, 2017 by elsiegee40

[dapaulio]

Try rewriting and exporting the unattend file using WAIK

[Arthur]

I've managed to get it all automated except for the DiskConfiguration part. It still prompts to me to wipe and create partitions. If I do, installation fails saying it can't install to the prepared partition.

I think it's because you are only creating a single partition in your XML file. You need to specify all of the partitions that Windows usually creates. Try one of these instead...

 

UEFI-based PCs

   
       
           
               en-US
           
           0809:00000809
           en-GB
           en-US
           en-GB
       
       
           
               
                   0
                   true
                   
                       
                           1
                           1024
                           Primary
                       
                       
                           2
                           100
                           EFI
                       
                       
                           3
                           128
                           MSR
                       
                       
                           4
                           true
                           Primary
                       
                   
                   
                       
                           1
                           1
                           NTFS
                           WinRE
                           DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC
                       
                       
                           2
                           2
                           System
                           FAT32
                       
                       
                           3
                           3
                       
                       
                           4
                           4
                           C
                           OS
                           NTFS
                       
                   
               
               OnError
           
           
               
                   
                       0
                       4
                   
               
           
           
               
                   
                       Kenton
                       ********
                       WDSService
                   
                   OnError
               
           
       
   
   

 

BIOS-based PCs

   
       
           
               en-US
           
           0809:00000809
           en-GB
           en-US
           en-GB
       
       
           
               
                   0
                   true
                   
                       
                           1
                           Primary
                           300
                       
                       
                           2
                           Primary
                           true
                       
                   
                   
                       
                           1
                           1
                           System
                           NTFS
                           true
                       
                       
                           2
                           2
                           OS
                           C
                           NTFS
                       
                   
               
               OnError
           
           
               
                   
                       0
                       2
                   
               
           
           
               
                   
                       Kenton
                       ********
                       WDSService
                   
               
           
       
   
   

[dapaulio]

 

A suggestion I am looking at %20 symbol which denote a space in URL encoding. Could be screwing things up. I haven't got any technical reason why it could be other than it has caught me out through unrelated issues in the past.

 

My suggestion still stands to recreate the unattend file using windows system image manager which is part of waik

[Arthur]

A suggestion I am looking at %20 symbol which denote a space in URL encoding. Could be screwing things up.

Windows System Image Manager normally encodes spaces as %20 in the XML. I've never had any issues because of that.

 

My suggestion still stands to recreate the unattend file using windows system image manager which is part of waik WADK

FWIW, both my XML files and @Planehazza's were successfully validated by WSIM.

[Planehazza]

yeah I've learned not to entirely trust and rely on the validation. What reports as 100% good isn't always, especially in the M$ world ha.

 

Regarding extra partitions, I'll give that a go. If I cannot get this 'willwipedisk' to work, I'll just use a script to run the commands via diskpart. It did the trick when I hit shift f10 and typed the following, line by line:

 

diskpart

select disk 0

clean

create partition primary

format fs=ntfs quick

active

exit

exit

Can annoyone recommend the best package to insert into the WinPE pass to run said Diskpart.bat? Also, I assume I can safely mount the boot.wim image and insert the batch file into it as I would with a normal install image?

Again, though that's only creating one partition on disk 0, yet the image continues to install just fine. It seems I'm having the same problem as many on the Internet; if the disk is simple, ie one partition, it continues and installs just fine. If there are >1 partitions, it says it's cannot install on the prepared partition. Reboot, and then attempt a second time (without doing any partition or drive stuff) and it installs just fine...

Edited August 14, 2017 by Planehazza

[Steve21]

Honestly been a long time since I've done unattends as using SCCM etc

 

But two things to check I'd say, are you sure that second "don't extend" should be in there? Surely you aren't making the partition to fill the disk so it has no space to install to? I thought you leave it blank or put true for single partitions?

 

Also, Shouldn't your install image part be within the WindowsDeploymentServices? Thought using it outside only worked for manual installs off USB/CD "standard unattends" etc

 

e.g.

 
     OnError
     
        blah
        blah
     
     
        0
        1
     
  

 

Again may be totally wrong, but sure that's how I had to do it last time I used WDS etc

 

Steve

[Arthur]

Shouldn't your install image part be within the WindowsDeploymentServices?

That could be it actually...

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/unattend/microsoft-windows-setup-windowsdeploymentservices-imageselection

 

Like you I normally use SCCM or MDT. Much better than WDS alone.

[sparkeh]

A suggestion I am looking at %20 symbol which denote a space in URL encoding. Could be screwing things up

I second this actually. I always have to remove the %20. There's a MS blog post about it somewhere, I'll try and dig it out when I'm not out and about.

[Planehazza]

That could be it actually...

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/unattend/microsoft-windows-setup-windowsdeploymentservices-imageselection

 

Like you I normally use SCCM or MDT. Much better than WDS alone.

 

The InstallImage isn't used anywhere on our setup, as I want to be able to select the image to install. I've set it up so that a thin WDSunattend preps the drive, logs in to the WDS server and prompts us to select the image. I then have an ImageUnattend tied to the images to do the specialise/oobe etc. stuff.

 

I'll try removing the %20s and then try adding a second partition.

[Planehazza]

%20 removed, no change. Addtional 300MB partition added, off to test...

[Planehazza]

Have given up on using the answer file to do my drives entirely. Have modified startnet.cmd to run 'diskpart /s diskpart script'. Now, this isn't running. If I shift-F10 and manually trun startnet.cmd, it runs through and sorts my drive/partitions perfectly. Why isn't startnet.cmd running, and at what point does it actually run?

 

My startnet.cmd file:

 

wpeinit

diskpart /s x:\windows\system32\diskpart.txt

Edited August 15, 2017 by Planehazza

[Planehazza]

Have given up on using the answer file to do my drives entirely. Have modified startnet.cmd to run 'diskpart /s diskpart script'. Now, this isn't running. If I shift-F10 and manually trun startnet.cmd, it runs through and sorts my drive/partitions perfectly. Why isn't startnet.cmd running, and at what point does it actually run?

 

My startnet.cmd file:

 

EDIT. This wouldn't fooking work either, and looking at this, it never will: https://slightlyovercomplicated.com/2016/11/07/windows-pe-startup-sequence-explained/

 

So instead, I've injected a simple bat file to the PE image so that we just have to press Shift-F10 and run 1.bat which works like above but without wpeinit, obviously.

 

A bit of a hack, but anything to speed up the process is a win. I've told the team we're moving to MDT once this is all.

A slightly unrelated issue... I took a copy of the boot.wim from the winPE image as backup; next thing I know I've two duplicate boot images appearing in WDS. I moved the backup elsewhere and the duplicate has disappeared from WDS, but it still appears in windows boot manager when we boot the clients to the NIC. Is there a way to edit the boot manager manually?