Install WinXP: Not so hard

Operating systems have evolved into the XP era. However, when operating systems are installed, many people may have to answer a few simple questions over an hour. In fact, some XP tools can help you get rid of the boring waiting during installation, but you may not have noticed them yet.

Windows XP has a wizard-type installation manager that helps us create a text file to answer all the questions during the installation process. Another important deployment tool is Sysprep. However, it is mainly positioned to duplicate Disk Images in conjunction with tools such as Ghost when installing the same operating system. As the name suggests, Sysprep is a "system preparation tool" that can delete all uniqueness information of the current operating system before creating a disk image. As long as you use Sysprep for preprocessing before creating a disk image, after the disk image is copied to the target machine, you do not have to use tools such as Ghost Walker to re-delete and configure certain unique configuration information, in particular, the SID duplication problem that may cause security risks.

Both the installation manager and Sysprep can be found on the CD of Win XP, which is in the DEPLOY. CAB file of SupportTools. Directly extract the entire DEPLOY. CAB file to a directory on the hard disk without installation.

　　I. Installation Manager

Since the purpose of the installation manager is to help us achieve the automatic installation of Win XP, it does not have to run on Win XP itself (Win XP can of course ). After the deploy.cabfile is unopened, double-click setupmgr.exe to start the installation and management wizard. The welcome screen appears. Click "Next" to create a fully automatic unattended installation configuration file. The following procedure consists of six.

① Select "create new response File". 1. Click "Next ".

Figure 1

② Select "Windows unattended installation", and 2. Click "Next ".

Figure 2

③ Select the operating system to be installed based on the actual situation, such as Win XP Pro and 3 (the installation manager on Win xp cd is applicable to multiple operating systems), and then click "Next ".

Figure 3

④ In the "Interaction level" dialog box, 4. Select "All auto" and click "Next ".

Figure 4

⑤ Select "Install from CD" and "5. Another option "Distribution folder" is to publish the Windows XP installation file through the shared folder, for example, through the network (rather than local CD. Click "Next" to confirm acceptance of the license agreement.

Figure 5

6. Go to the settings page shown in Figure 6 and set the information used during Windows installation. Each time you answer a group of questions, click "Next". After entering all the information, "Next" will change to "complete ". Based on my experience, pay attention to the following points: first, you must manually select the GMT + 8 (Beijing) Time Zone when selecting the time zone. It will not automatically select this option as it is during the formal installation process. Second, check the product key carefully. The installation manager does not check whether the key is correct. If the key is wrong, unattended installation cannot proceed smoothly.

Figure 6

After you click "finish", the wizard will prompt you to save the configuration file. There are two wizard files. The first is the unattend.txt installation package, which provides the information required for the installation process. The second is unattend. bat, which is used to start the installation process. Double-click unattend. bat to start the unattended installation process. Note that before clicking unattend. bat, add the CD of Win XP.

The following is an example of unattend. bat (Omitted comments and several lines of irrelevant commands ):

As you can see, if you want to move unattend.batand unattend.txt to another machine for unattended installation, you may need to modify the following content: first, if unattend.txt and unattend. bat is not in the same directory, you must modify the AnswerFile environment variable to point it to the correct path; second, if the CD-ROM is not F: disk, you must put "F:" In the two "F: \ i386: "To the correct drive letter.

In the process of running the wizard, we have always selected the simplest and most automated installation method, which is actually the most typical unattended installation method. In addition, the installation manager can help us prepare various installation methods, such as using Sysprep to perform disk image installation, Remote Installation Services, and precisely adjust the automation of the installation process, you need to study and explore it all by yourself.

　　Ii. Disk Image

In recent years, disk imaging tools such as Ghost have gradually become essential tools for many people, probably because the operating system is growing in size. Some individual users also like to use disk images, but it is hard to imagine that enterprises, enterprises, computer manufacturers, and vendors are the most enthusiastic advocates for installing machines through Disk Images, so next we will simply look at XP's Sysprep.

As far as the operating system installation speed is concerned, the disk image method is dominant, but it also has some shortcomings that cannot be ignored. First, because the disk image directly copies the disk content of the source machine, the target machine generally has the same hardware device as the source machine.

Second, some configuration information should be different for each machine. For example, the machine name and TCP/IP configuration must be modified after the image is deployed. Windows 2 K/XP faces an important problem: If you deploy the same disk image on multiple machines, their security identifier (SID) are the same as the source machine. SID is used to identify the unique identity of a machine on the network. Each machine must be different, but modifying the SID is not as easy as modifying the machine name and TCP/IP configuration, you must use tools such as Ghost Walker or use the system preparation tool Sysprep provided by Win XP to pre-process the source machine before creating the disk image.

. Copy the two files to the Sysprep directory of the source machine C: disk, and double-click Sysprep to start running. Sysprep clears all configuration information that must be unique in the system, including the machine name, serial number, SID, and so on. After the source machine is processed by Sysprep, the disk image can be created as usual.

The method for deploying a disk image on the target machine is the same as that for conventional deployment. However, at the first startup, the system runs a "minimum installation wizard" to provide various unique configurations.

Using Sysprep has an additional advantage, which can detect the nuances of the source and target machines on hardware devices, such as different NICs and graphics cards. For more information about using Sysprep, see the Help File in DEPLOY. CAB.