136 C HAPTER 5 SETTING UP AND ROLLING OUT WINDOWS SERVER

◆ After that, insert the Server 2003 installation CD in the CD-ROM drive. ◆ Finally, in your computer’s BIOS, you need to rearrange the boot order.

Ideally, you’d like a system that lets you tell it to first boot from the CD-ROM and then, if that wasn’t bootable, to try the C: drive, and only if those two weren’t available, to boot from A:. Now, with the CD-ROM in its drive and the floppy in the A: drive, boot the system. It’ll ask you to press a key to boot from the CD-ROM and, if you don’t, then it boots from the hard disk.

Then you just walk away.

What’s going on? A trick built into Windows 2000 and later versions of NT. If it boots from its setup CD, it then looks on the A: drive for a file named winnt.sif_{. If it finds one then it presumes}

that the winnt.sif _{file is the script that it should use to do an unattended install. Pretty neat, eh? Hey,}

stay tuned, it gets even better.

Improving the Script More

Once you’ve got a basic script like that working, you can take it considerably further, as the script language is pretty extensive. Look back in the directory where you copied the files from deploy.cab

and you’ll see a large WordPad document named unattend.doc_{—a roughly 180-page document—}

that documents all of the scripting parameters. Here are a couple suggestions.

Move Documents and Settings

Windows 2000 and later OSes store the user profiles by default in a directory C:\Documentsand Settings_{; if you want to move that, then add the line ProfilesDir=path to put the profiles some-}

where else.

Preconfigure Internet Explorer

As I mentioned a few pages back, you can configure Internet Explorer in the script as well. For example, here’s a piece from a script that I use:

[FavoritesEx]

Title1="Mark Minasi Home Page.url" URL1="http://www.minasi.com" [Branding]

BrandIEUsingUnattended=Yes [URL]

Home_Page=about:blank

The first section preloads my home page into my Favorites. The second just warns Setup that we’ll be configuring IE via a script, and the third section defines my home page as about:blank.

Now, for those of you who are IEAK (Internet Explorer Administration Kit) wizards, then your hard work isn’t wasted—there’s a script setting that tells Setup to find the file containing your IEAK settings and then to apply them. (Run Setup Manager and you’ll see the option.)

Postinstall Polishing: Adding Support and Branding Info

Now that you’ve got your system set up, let’s add a bit of branding and support info. (Truthfully, the branding info is a bit silly—though fun—but the support info isn’t silly, it’s useful.)

PERFORMING UNATTENDED INSTALLS: AN OVERVIEW 137

Try this: log in to your Server 2003 system as Administrator (that’s probably the only account you’ve got built yet anyway), and find the icon on the Desktop labeled My Computer in the upper- left corner. Right-click it and choose Properties. You’ll see a multitabbed properties page like the one you’ve seen elsewhere in Windows. You can add a picture (or any bitmap) to it in the empty space on the left side, like so:

◆ Take any bitmap that’s roughly 175 × 175pixels. ◆ Name it oemlogo.bmp_.

◆ Place it in \windows\system32 _or \winnt\system32_{, whichever you’ve got the OS in.}

Next, let’s add some support information. You can “brand” a computer to describe its model, and also add an arbitrary set of lines of text for support information by including a file in \winnt\system32

named oeminfo.ini_{. This is an ASCII text file with two sections, [General] and [Support Information].}

It looks like this:

[General]

Manufacturer=<descriptive vendor name> Model=<particular model>

[Support Information] Line1=<first line of text> Line2=<second line of text> Line3=<and so on >

For example, you might have an oeminfo.ini _{file that looks like the following:} [General]

Manufacturer=Clonetronics

Model=DeskWidget 820 (60GB disk, 733 Processor) [Support Information]

Line1=For Tech Support call: Line2=(555) 555-1212

Line3=After hours, call Bill Line4=(If you can find him)

Try it and you’ll see that it works quite well and can be a useful way to “brand” a system.

Scripts, Part II: Distribution Shares and $OEM$

You’ve seen that one way to start an unattended install is to shove a floppy and a CD into a system, boot, and walk away. But that’s really only of value if you just want to install the operating system with the basics. Next, let’s see how to load a whole bunch of new software, and also do some other great stuff, including installing applications on top of the OS.

Starting a Setup with WINNT/WINNT32

Like previous versions of NT, Server 2003 ships on a CD and includes a large directory called I386_.

Inside I386 _{are a pair of programs that you’ve already met,} winnt.exe _and winnt32.exe_{. As you’ve}