To begin with, insert your Windows XP installation CD into the drive and copy the entire contents of the CD to a folder on your Hard Drive. Navigate to the Support > Tools folder on the CD and double-click the Deploy. cab file. Copy all the files to a folder on your hard disk.
The crucial part begins now -- creating the answer file. To execute the Windows Setup Manager, double-click the Setupmgr.exe file from the contents of Deploy.cab, which you just copied onto the hard drive.
Step 2: Creation
The first few steps of the wizard are self-explanatory. Select the following options from the successive dialog boxes: Create a new answer file; Windows unattended installation (Select the appropriate Windows version); Fully automated ; No, this answer file will be used to install from CD ; and finally, accept the license agreement.
Under General Settings, you can customize the installation of Windows by providing the default name and organizations, display settings, time zone and the product code. Fill in the fields using the drop-down lists or by keying in the details. If you don't select an option from the drop-down lists, the default values will be used. Under Network Settings, configure the computer name, administrator password, networking components and workgroup. If you are specifying the Administrator password, make sure you check the option to encrypt the password in the answer file. If you have a static IP address, you can specify the settings under the Networking Components section. Use the Advanced Settings section only to configure telephony, browser and shell settings and installation folders. Under Browser and Shell Settings, click the browser settings button to set the home page and add Favorites. If you are in network, you can also specify the proxy settings.
After you're done, click Finish and save the answer file as winnt.sif when you are prompted. Advanced users can further tweak the answer file by referring to the Help file called Ref.chm in the same folder as the Setup Manager. Finally, copy the answer file to the i386 folder in the Windows XP installation folder you created in the beginning.
Step 3: Burning
Insert a blank CD-R media into your CD Writer. Use burning software such as Nero to create your boot CD. Go to File > New, select "Boot Cd" and select the boot image file that you created in Step 2. Make sure that emulation is set to "No emulation". The boot segment is automatically filled in by Nero -- all you need to do is set the number of loaded sectors to 4. Select Mode1 and ISO level 2, from under the ISO tab. Enable all options under "Relax ISO Restrictions", and use the ISO 9660 Character set. Under the Label tab, enter the same label name as that of the original CD. To find this, just insert the Windows XP installation CD into your CD-ROM drive and open Windows Explorer to see the name displayed against your CD drive. Click "New" to open the File Explorer browser. In the file browser, select all the XP Installation files with the answer file in the i386 folder to a new CD. Finally open the CD Write dialog box, and under the "Burn" tab, enable the Finalize CD option. Now, write the compilation to the blank CD-R.
Your unattended Windows XP installation disc is ready.
