The installation of systems (professional or private) is a tedious job. In general nobody enjoys this. Nowadays most private individuals also have at least 2 computers. In my case there are 3 PC's in my private office and 3 in my companie's office (I am the company owner). There are also 2 laptops. Mind you: I use these 8 PC's solely for my work and my hobby as a Linux developer.
It doesn't matter whether it's Linux, Windows or Mac OS: You need an automated installation if you want to avoid this waste of time. The installation of the system itself is usually not that much work - but installing and configuring the other applications (e.g. browser, email program, office package, etc.) is often very time-consuming.
Since I am forced to work with Windows on the desktop - for professional reasons - this collection of scripts / this HowTo is exclusively geared towards Windows - and that will not change either.
First I looked for a "professional" solution. Unfortunately I didn't find anything suitable. Sure - there is commercial software (so-called "enterprise" programs) but mostly these are bad or expensive or both or simply not available for normal users or small companies. I'm following the KISS principle privately and professionally - this is why complicated software (aka. bloatware) with agents, whistles and bells etc. pp. was out of the question.
Another major problem is the spying frenzy of software manufacturers. Yes - i mean you Microsoft! So this means primarily the removing of Windows 10 telemetry. But unsolicited updates, by third-party manufacturers, are just as plague. This project takes care of that problem - as far as possible - without impairing the functionality of the system in an intolerable manner. But what is still tolerable? This lies mostly in the eye of the beholder ...
Finally, there is the problem of obesity. Modern systems are getting fatter, slower, more complex and therefore uglier. The whole thing has now reached a level that is no longer acceptable for many users. That is why one of the core tasks of this project is to strip down Windows 10 as much as possible (without loosing to much functionality - see above). This also automatically results in a reduction of the attack surface (programs that do not exist cannot be attacked).
set PATH=%SYSTEMROOT%;%SYSTEMROOT%\system32;%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps;%TOOLS%;%TOOLS%\git\bin;%TOOLS%\git\usr\bin
Notice: Purebasic is needed to compile the software in the folder "source". These tools are precompiled and i placed the compiled versions in the folder "tools" - but in case you want to make some changes you will have to install this. The free version is sufficient to compile these little machine programs. By the way: Purebasic is a really great Basic dialect. It is Ultrafast, produces really small executables, it's rock solid and you won't need such bullshit like "vbrun100.dll" (shame on you Microsoft) to execute these binaries. It was created by a french programmer (Frederic Laboureur). Please support them and buy a licence in case you like Purebasic!
The internet is changing constantly. Software is changing at all times. URI's (files) **disappear**! Especially Microsoft has the habit to remove old versions of operating systems from their download servers. *But 3rd parties do this too.*
In fact: This was one of the main reasons why i created this: I wanted to have a source i can trust - a source that will not change until i say so.
So my advice is: upload the software to your own ftp server or create a local copy on some USB drive and most important: KEEP this copy for yourself!
Uploading all the software to your own server is easy. Just create the folder "personal" (in w10install) and put a config file named "ftpsettings.cmd" in it:
The folder "personal" is also used by some other scripts in this project. You can place config files or license files in this folder (This will be described in detail in some other chapters). It may be a good idea to have this folder ("personal") as GIT repository on git or somewhere else - just my 50 cents.
There is also a folder "company" which can be used for license files and special binaries. I'm also recommending to create a git repository that will be checked out by you just before creating the target media.
Both folders must be created before calling the script that copies all files to the stick. Both folders will be copied then to the target machine when installing it via the USB stick...
Please notice: In the example i have chosen the path "... w10install/W1020H2v1". Best practice would be to have a folder for each Windows version (W1020H2v1). All files (including the iso file) should be put there - this makes sure that you have everything in one place for the case that you come back a year later or so and you want to create a new USB stick with a older Windows version - for testing purposes.
## 6.1 Upload ALL files to a private ftp server
Lets say you want to upload all browser related software to your private ftp server.
The script reads the file "browser.csv" in folder "software" and uploads all files to your ftp server. The files will be uploaded in any case (the script is not checking the size of the file in the target or whether it's already present. This is a really dumb script - but IMHO there's no smarter way to do this in dos batch ...). This is the reason why i have created a script to upload single files (see next chapter).
## 6.2 Upload a SINGLE file to a private ftp server
Lets say you want to upload the driver software for the WFC5210 printer to your private ftp server.
HINT: You can use this also to upload the ISO file to the ftp server.
## 6.3 Download software from a private FTP server
When you have uploaded the entire software to your private ftp server you can download it again on another workstation with the script "download-from-ftp.cmd" and you are then not dependent on any of the original sources. This is useful when files "disappear" "accidentally" or "unintentionally" from some server. That is also a reason why I programmed all of this here.
This is needed to be able to edit the Microsoft XML files (needed for unattended installation) and for the creation of ISO files (last step in the build process - mainly needed for testing purposes).
Creating a new windows image and removing "builtin" packages needs a tool called "install_wim_tweak". To install this tool an some others just execute:
*HINT: In case you need a "standard" windows media without modifications just skip the following 3 steps and proceed directly to the script "06_FormatStick.cmd" (chapter 9).*
**WARNING: Be careful what you remove - or you could end up with a non working windows installation.**
*SUGGESTION: Before modifying your windows image (and maybe screwing up everything) go through the whole process and test your boot media with a standard image.*
Please use a fast USB 3 stick. The size should be 16 GB or more (you could use 8 GB but windows images are tending to get bigger and bigger. Additionally: We will copy lots of 3rd party software to the stick).
IMPORTANT HINT: the script will ask for UEFI or BIOS mode. This means: In case you have a target machine that cannot boot in UEFI mode choose "BIOS" (or "B"). In all other cases UEFI may be a better choice. You can boot most modern boards in "BIOS" mode. Just enable "legacy" boot mode in you PC's firmware.
Having an ISO image is useful for testing purposes or it maybe needed for a special use case - for e.g.: you want to install the system on some machine in the datacenter and the remote console needs an ISO image as boot media.
*Notice: This step is one of the reasons why we need the Windows ADK. The binary "oscdimg" is included in this Microsoft package. "oscdimg" is used by "08_MakeISOfromStick.cm" for creating the ISO image.*
(Using your stick/your disk to install a new machine.)
## 10.1 Firmware settings
Enter your firmware (typically by pressing "ESC", "F1" or "ENTF" while the machine is starting). DISABLE secure boot and all the other rubbish. Goto menu "Startup".
### 10.1.1 Boot order
Set your boot order in the machines "Startup" menu to:
- 1st Device: Hard Disk
- 2nd Device: USB Disk
Remove all other boot devices from the list.
### 10.1.2 Boot method
In case you want to install via BIOS method set the firmware to:
- Legacy only
In case you want to install via UEFI method set the firmware to:
- UEFI only
DO NOT USE "both" - in most cases this WILL cause trouble!
## 10.2 Booting
Power off your machine completely and boot it. Hit the "F12" key (or the key needed to select the boot device - in some cases this could also be "F11" or some other key) so that the machine starts from your newly generated USB drive.
In the next screen select your USB disk:
## 10.3 Installing
After booting from the USB media you will see a menu. Select "INSTALL system" and click on "Yes" two times. *IMPORTANT! This will DELETE ALL DATA from your machine!* Answering "No" will reboot the machine without touching your data.
Clicking on the button "COMMAND shell" will start the rescue system.
Clicking on "Snapshot 64" will start the Bsckup/Restore program and you can restore your machine (from bare metal) over the network or with the attached USB drive using an image that was previously saved with "Snapshot 64").
## 10.4 Troubleshooting
*IMPORTANT!*
The windows setup program is not able to use "exfat" when starting in UEFI mode!
This means you can use 2 types of media to install a windows system:
1.) UEFI boot
- media **must** be formatted with **fat32***ONLY*
- max. media size is **32768 MBytes**
- max. **WIM file** size must be smaller than **4 GBytes**
(because fat32 does not support files larger than 4 GBytes)
2.) BIOS boot
- media can be formatted with fat32 or exfat
- max. media size is limited by disk format (exfat can be larger)
- max. WIM file size can be larger than 4 GBytes
*Do NOT try to use exfat with UEFI boot!* This **will** result in the following error:
```dos
Windows could not create a partition on disk 0. The error occured while applying the unattended answer file's <DiskConfiguration> setting. Error code: 0x80042565
