1 00:00:01,140 --> 00:00:03,680 I'm going to create all the components that are needed 2 00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:05,850 in order to make an answer file. 3 00:00:05,850 --> 00:00:09,920 So I'm in my Windows 2022 server, and I'm going to open up a web 4 00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:13,710 browser, and I'm going to go to this particular site. 5 00:00:13,710 --> 00:00:17,540 You can just do a search for Windows ADK. 6 00:00:17,540 --> 00:00:21,520 The ADK is the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit. It has a lot 7 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:25,490 of different features and uses that we can have for our Windows 8 00:00:25,490 --> 00:00:27,520 Server, as well as our Windows clients. 9 00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:30,880 I'm going to go ahead and choose to install, and here's the 10 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:34,240 option for the ADK for Windows Server 2022. 11 00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:37,460 The answer file is going to give us a comprehensive list of things 12 00:00:37,460 --> 00:00:41,760 that we can answer beforehand, so we don't have to make these changes 13 00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:44,400 during the actual installation itself. 14 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:49,850 And we can even do some additional things such as creating specific‑sized 15 00:00:49,850 --> 00:00:55,620 format drives and hundreds of other options to automate our installation of 16 00:00:55,620 --> 00:01:00,070 Windows Server 2022, as well as any other version of Windows. My download is 17 00:01:00,070 --> 00:01:04,240 complete, so I'll go ahead and run the ADK setup. 18 00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:07,670 This is a very large set of utilities, and you don't need 19 00:01:07,670 --> 00:01:09,650 to install all the different options. 20 00:01:09,650 --> 00:01:13,440 We're just going to work on the deployment tools. 21 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:17,740 I'm going to choose the default path and click Next. 22 00:01:17,740 --> 00:01:21,150 You can choose whether or not for Microsoft to make a collection 23 00:01:21,150 --> 00:01:25,370 of information, accept the license, and here's where we can 24 00:01:25,370 --> 00:01:27,690 uncheck a lot of these options here. 25 00:01:27,690 --> 00:01:30,760 It's just going to take up a lot of space, and we're just not going to be 26 00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:39,910 using them all. Click Install, and I'll click Close. 27 00:01:39,910 --> 00:01:46,070 Now I'll go to the Start menu, and I want to choose the Windows System Image 28 00:01:46,070 --> 00:01:50,240 Manager, and that's how we can create our answer file. 29 00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:54,410 I also want to make sure that we have mounted the Windows ISO 30 00:01:54,410 --> 00:01:58,180 file as a DVD, or if you have a DVD player, 31 00:01:58,180 --> 00:02:00,440 you can just go ahead and mount that. 32 00:02:00,440 --> 00:02:04,930 And I'm going to choose to open it, and I'm going to go to the 33 00:02:04,930 --> 00:02:09,630 sources folder, and I need one of the files that are in the sources 34 00:02:09,630 --> 00:02:15,390 folder, and it'll be called install.wim, and there's my file. I'm 35 00:02:15,390 --> 00:02:17,940 just going to right‑click and copy it. 36 00:02:17,940 --> 00:02:23,540 I'm going to go back to my C drive and create a new folder. 37 00:02:23,540 --> 00:02:28,340 I'm just going to call it wim, but you can call it anything that you'd like. 38 00:02:28,340 --> 00:02:32,340 And I'm going to right‑click and choose to paste it in there. 39 00:02:32,340 --> 00:02:34,650 It's a fairly large file, so it may take a minute. 40 00:02:34,650 --> 00:02:39,370 The Windows System Image Manager program is going to need this install.wim 41 00:02:39,370 --> 00:02:44,510 file in order to create a config file where we're going to create our answer 42 00:02:44,510 --> 00:02:47,320 file. Although it sounds fairly complicated, 43 00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:48,690 it's actually pretty easy. 44 00:02:48,690 --> 00:02:51,270 So when we go through all these different steps, 45 00:02:51,270 --> 00:02:56,960 you'll see how we can customize. Our install.wim file is located safely in 46 00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:00,010 our wim folder, so now what we're going to do is we're going to go in the 47 00:03:00,010 --> 00:03:02,540 lower‑left corner where it says Windows Image, 48 00:03:02,540 --> 00:03:06,200 right‑click and choose to select a Windows image. 49 00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:08,870 And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to browse to that 50 00:03:08,870 --> 00:03:13,240 location and pick my install.wim file. 51 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:17,250 So I'll go to this PC, scroll down, 52 00:03:17,250 --> 00:03:23,640 choose the C drive, the wim folder, and the wim file. 53 00:03:23,640 --> 00:03:28,200 Now I have several different images on this particular file, so you want to pick 54 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,850 the one that works for you. I don't want to choose the core version because 55 00:03:31,850 --> 00:03:33,760 that's going to just come up with a command prompt. 56 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:35,920 I want to choose the one that doesn't say core. 57 00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:37,420 That's going to give me the graphical user 58 00:03:37,420 --> 00:03:39,240 interface that we're seeing right now. 59 00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:44,380 So I'll click OK, and it says that a catalog file has not been created yet. 60 00:03:44,380 --> 00:03:45,330 Do you want to create it? 61 00:03:45,330 --> 00:03:46,860 Yes, I do. 62 00:03:46,860 --> 00:03:48,730 Now this can take a couple of minutes. 63 00:03:48,730 --> 00:03:49,950 Once it's done, 64 00:03:49,950 --> 00:03:53,440 we're going to see information off to the left‑hand side 65 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:57,040 that will help us create our answer file. 66 00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:58,920 The configuration file is complete. 67 00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:02,160 If I go back to my wim folder, 68 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:07,090 we can see the config file here. And you can copy this to another 69 00:04:07,090 --> 00:04:10,920 location if you don't want this one changed in any way, so that way 70 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:13,720 you can use it again in the future because it does take a while to 71 00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:16,240 create that configuration file. 72 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:18,240 Now what we need to do is create a new answer file. 73 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:23,230 So I'll go up to File, New Answer File, and there's my answer file. 74 00:04:23,230 --> 00:04:27,880 So what this is going to be is the autounattend.xml file, 75 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:29,640 which will be our answer file that will drop in the 76 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:32,740 root of an installation folder. 77 00:04:32,740 --> 00:04:36,740 So we're going to use these components and packages on the left‑hand side 78 00:04:36,740 --> 00:04:41,040 to copy into the components on the right‑hand side. 79 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:45,570 I'm going to expand Components, and we don't need all of these different things. 80 00:04:45,570 --> 00:04:49,460 What I'm going to choose is to look for the Setup one right here. I'm going 81 00:04:49,460 --> 00:04:55,430 to right‑click and choose Add Setting to Pass 1 on windowsPE. There is my 82 00:04:55,430 --> 00:05:00,100 file here at the top. I can expand, and you can see all the different things 83 00:05:00,100 --> 00:05:02,010 that you can change ahead of time. 84 00:05:02,010 --> 00:05:06,600 I'm going to go off to the right after selecting the AMD64 setup, and 85 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:09,020 take a look. There's already a few things that you can change right 86 00:05:09,020 --> 00:05:11,820 here such as the firewall. We can say, yes, 87 00:05:11,820 --> 00:05:15,590 we want that either enabled or disabled during installation, 88 00:05:15,590 --> 00:05:17,630 so I'll set that to true. Now by default, 89 00:05:17,630 --> 00:05:20,890 it's set to true anyway, but this just gives you an idea of how this works. 90 00:05:20,890 --> 00:05:24,660 So I'll choose the drop‑down on the network and choose to enable that. 91 00:05:24,660 --> 00:05:28,120 We can change the log‑on path, we can go to Restart, 92 00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:31,340 hit the drop‑down there and choose Restart or Shutdown if we 93 00:05:31,340 --> 00:05:35,160 need to. And then there's the UseConfigurationSet as well. 94 00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:37,020 Here's the drop‑down for that. 95 00:05:37,020 --> 00:05:39,280 Now if we go off to the left again, there's lots of 96 00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:41,040 different things that we can set up. 97 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:44,310 I'm going to choose the user data as an example, and you can 98 00:05:44,310 --> 00:05:47,630 add the product key during installation if you'd like. Or if 99 00:05:47,630 --> 00:05:49,250 you just click on UserData, 100 00:05:49,250 --> 00:05:52,960 you can choose to automatically accept the end user license agreement. 101 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:54,110 That can be helpful. 102 00:05:54,110 --> 00:05:59,370 You can put in your full name here if you'd like, and that will enter it 103 00:05:59,370 --> 00:06:03,140 during the installation, and you can put in your organization. 104 00:06:03,140 --> 00:06:04,740 Next, I'm going to go down to where it says 105 00:06:04,740 --> 00:06:10,270 WindowsDeploymentServices and choose Login and then Credentials. 106 00:06:10,270 --> 00:06:13,560 Now under Credentials, I can go ahead and automatically join a 107 00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:18,840 domain and put in a username and a password as well. 108 00:06:18,840 --> 00:06:25,620 So under the domain, I'll just call it ps.int, and for the 109 00:06:25,620 --> 00:06:29,240 password, I'll go ahead and put that in. 110 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:32,650 Pretty simple, but it does meet the minimum requirements, and 111 00:06:32,650 --> 00:06:36,930 I'll put in the username is going to be administrator. On the 112 00:06:36,930 --> 00:06:40,970 lower left‑hand side, I'm going to go back, and I'm going to 113 00:06:40,970 --> 00:06:43,140 this time expand Packages. 114 00:06:43,140 --> 00:06:47,760 There's all different types of packages that we can add in, as well as products, 115 00:06:47,760 --> 00:06:49,900 security updates, all these different things. 116 00:06:49,900 --> 00:06:51,440 I'm going to choose the updates. 117 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:56,260 I'll choose the package for the DotNetRollup as an example. 118 00:06:56,260 --> 00:06:59,110 I'll right‑click, and I'll choose Add to Answer File, and we can see 119 00:06:59,110 --> 00:07:03,930 it shows up under Packages. And on the right‑hand side, we can 120 00:07:03,930 --> 00:07:08,220 change only one thing here, the primary source path. And there's 121 00:07:08,220 --> 00:07:10,000 nothing here under Update itself. 122 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:12,580 So, this particular one doesn't have a lot of options, but it will 123 00:07:12,580 --> 00:07:16,970 automatically install that package for me. Now that all the different 124 00:07:16,970 --> 00:07:21,390 components and packages have been set the way I want them, I'm going to go up 125 00:07:21,390 --> 00:07:27,620 to where it says File, and I'm going to choose Save Answer File As. Now, I'm 126 00:07:27,620 --> 00:07:30,690 going to put this into the same folder. You can put it anywhere you want just 127 00:07:30,690 --> 00:07:34,910 to start with. And I'll put it in my wim so I can find it more easily, and I 128 00:07:34,910 --> 00:07:40,800 need to call it Autounattend, and it's got to be a .xml file, which it's going 129 00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:42,840 to be by default. 130 00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:52,090 If it's called anything different than autoattend.xml, it will not work as an 131 00:07:52,090 --> 00:07:56,470 answer file, so we have to call it that. I'll click Save, and now I'm going to 132 00:07:56,470 --> 00:08:01,730 go down to my folder, and there's my Autounattend XML. I'm going to 133 00:08:01,730 --> 00:08:06,820 right‑click and choose Edit, and here we can see all the different changes 134 00:08:06,820 --> 00:08:09,910 that we made to this particular file. 135 00:08:09,910 --> 00:08:13,880 The next step would be to drop this in the root of any installation 136 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:18,000 folder, and we can add this to a custom image using Windows deployment 137 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:28,000 server, or we can copy it to the root of a USB bootable Windows installation drive and install it right from there.