Unattended Installation under Windows 2000

This page provides information about:

You can perform a Windows 2000 Professional unattended installation using any LSS8 Madge Token-Ring adapter.

See The MDGNDIS5 NDIS 5 Miniport Driver for Windows 98, 2000, XP and ME for a list of supported adapters.

The basic procedure for the unattended installation is similar to that for Windows NT, as described in Unattended Installation under Windows NT 4.

If necessary, you can set driver parameters (such as LAA or RINGSPEED) during unattended installation. You do this by editing NETMADGE.INF. However, doing this changes the status of the driver, making it unsigned, and causing the system to revert to the built-in signed driver. Therefore, if you want to set parameters during unattended installation, you must remove the Microsoft-supplied Madge Driver from the installation image first. 

For details of this procedure, see Custom Installation below.

An Outline of Standard Installation

There are four major stages in a standard Windows 2000 unattended installation:

  1. Creating a Windows 2000 distribution image from which the unattended installation will take place. For details, see Creating a Distribution Image below.

  2. Copying the NDIS 5 driver (MDGNDIS5.SYS) to the distribution image. For details, see Copying Drivers to the Image below.

  3. Customizing the file that controls the installation. This is called UNATTEND.TXT, and is a script file containing control parameters. For details of how to customize the file, see Customising the Control File below. For an example file, see The Control File (UNATTEND.TXT).

  4. Starting the installation. For details, see Starting the Installation below.

Creating a Distribution Image

The Windows 2000 CD directory structure is based on the processor architecture of the machine to which the installation is to be applied. The \I386  directory contains all the files required for a complete Workstation installation.

Unattended installation runs from an image of this \I386  directory.

To Create the Image:

  1. Create a shared directory called \I386 on the distribution server.

  2. Copy the contents of the \I386 directory on the Windows 2000 CD to the new shared directory

For example: if the Windows 2000 CD is in drive D: and the shared directory is X:\I386, the copy command is:

xcopy D:\I386 \*.*  X:\I386  /s/e

Copying Drivers to the Image

You must copy the latest signed (certified) drivers to the image.

The parameter OemFilesPath in the [Unattended] section of the control file UNATTEND.TXT defines the path to this driver as drivers\net. Therefore, you need to create a directory $oem$\$1\Drivers\Net to hold the driver. For details, see Customising the Control File below.

To Copy the Driver Files:

  1. Create a directory called \I386 \$OEM$\$1\DRIVERS\NET on the distribution server.

  2. Copy ALL of the files included with the NDIS 5 driver to this directory.

On completion, the directory and file structure is:

\I386        
\I386\$OEM$
\I386\$OEM$\$1
\I386\$OEM$\$1\DRIVERS
\I386\$OEM$\$1\DRIVERS\NET
                           NETMADGE.INF
                           MDGNDIS5.SYS
                           MDGNDIS.HLP
                           MDGLOG95.EXE
                           MDGNDIS5.CAT
                           SETUPLOG.EXE
                           MINSTALL.MIS

Customizing the Control File (UNATTEND.TXT)

UNATTEND.TXT controls the unattended installation. An example file is shown in The Control File (UNATTEND.TXT).

  1. Copy UNATTEND.TXT to the \I386  directory on the distribution image.

    You can:

    -     Copy the default example file from the Win 2000 CD. (\I386)

    -         Use the Windows 2000 Set-up Manager from the 2000 Resource Kit to create an UNATTEND.TXT with the appropriate settings.

    -         Use the Madge example file from this document.

  2. Edit the [Unattended] section as shown below:

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=FullUnattended
OemPreinstall=Yes
OemSkipEula=Yes
OemPnPDriversPath=drivers\net
DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore

Parameters in bold must be specified.

OemPnPDriversPath refers to the location of the driver, as described in Copying the Driver to the Image.

Starting the Installation

The files renamed or deleted below contain driver customization details. For further details, see Removing the Driver from the Image.

  1. Do one of the following:

    For Madge Adapters, rename or delete     NETMADGE.IN_ from the \I386 directory on the distribution image. Then copy the LSS 8 NETMADGE.INF file to the \I386 directory.

    For Olicom Adapters, rename or delete MFOCT35.IN_, NETOCT35.IN_ and NETOCT4P.IN_ from the \I386 directory on the distribution image.

  2. Start Windows 2000 Setup to run an unattended installation:

WINNT /U:X:\I386\UNATTEND.TXT /S:<installation-source> /T:<target-drive>

Custom Installation

If you need to change the driver settings (for example, to assign an LAA or to define the Ring Speed) you must edit NETMADGE.INF and remove the original signed driver in addition to creating a distribution image, applying the driver to the image and customizing UNATTEND.TXT.

We have worked with Microsoft on a procedure to provide a simple means of assigning driver parameters, but at the time of the LSS 8 release we are still required to remove the original Madge driver from the distribution image.

There are six major stages in a customized Windows 2000 unattended installation:

  1. Creating a Windows 2000 distribution image from which the unattended installation will take place. For details, see Creating a Distribution Image.

  2. Copying the NDIS 5 driver (MDGNDIS5.SYS) to the distribution image. For details, see Copying the Driver to the Image.

  3. Customizing the file that controls the installation. This is called UNATTEND.TXT, and is a script file containing control parameters. For details of how to customize the file, see Customising the Control File above; for an example file, see The Control File (UNATTEND.TXT).

  4. Customizing the driver parameter file NETMADGE.INF. For details, see Customizing Driver Parameters.

  5. Removing the original signed driver supplied by Microsoft from the distribution image. For details, see Removing the Driver from the Image.

  6. Starting the installation. For details, see Starting the Custom Installation.

Customizing Driver Parameters

Driver parameters are defined in NETMADGE.INF in the \I386\$OEM$\$1\DRIVERS\NET directory.

To Customize the Parameters:

Open the file and edit it as required with a standard text editor.

Typical settings are:

[MadgeTRN.reg]
; NetworkAddress
HKR, NDI\params\NetworkAddress,         ParamDesc,  0, %LAA%
HKR, NDI\params\NetworkAddress,         default,    0, "400088889999"
HKR, NDI\params\NetworkAddress,         type,       0, "edit"
HKR, NDI\params\NetworkAddress,         LimitText,  0, "12"
HKR, NDI\params\NetworkAddress,         UpperCase,  0, "0"
HKR, NDI\params\NetworkAddress,         optional,   0, "0"

(Result = Working  LAA 400088889999 is accepted and shown in dialog box.)

; MaxFrameSize
HKR, NDI\params\MaxFrameSize,           ParamDesc,  0, %MaxFrameSize%
HKR, Ndi\params\MaxFrameSize,           default,    0, "4000"
HKR, NDI\params\MaxFrameSize,           type,       0, "int"
HKR, NDI\params\MaxFrameSize,           min,        0, "1024"
HKR, NDI\params\MaxFrameSize,           max,        0, "17839"

(Result = Working  MaxFrameSize set to 4000)

[Speed.reg]
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed,              ParamDesc,  0, %RingSpeed%
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed,              default,    0, "2"
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed,              type,       0, "enum"
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed\enum,         1,          0, %AtAdapter%
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed\enum,         2,          0, %4M%
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed\enum,         3,          0, %16M%
;

[HighSpeed.reg]
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed,              ParamDesc,  0, %RingSpeed%
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed,              default,    0, "1"
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed,              type,       0, "enum"
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed\enum,         1,          0, %AtAdapter%
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed\enum,         2,          0, %4M%
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed\enum,         3,          0, %16M%
HKR, NDI\params\RingSpeed\enum,         4,          0, %100M%

(Result = Working  RingSpeed set to 4Mb)

; StatsGathering
[Stats.reg] ;
HKR, NDI\params\StatsGathering,         ParamDesc,  0, %StatsGathering%
HKR, NDI\params\StatsGathering,         default,    0, "1"
HKR, NDI\params\StatsGathering,         type,       0, "enum"
HKR, NDI\params\StatsGathering\enum,    0,          0, %No%
HKR, NDI\params\StatsGathering\enum,    1,          0, %Yes%

(Result = Working  StatsGathering (Promiscuous mode) enabled)

Removing the Driver from the Image

  1. Do one of the following:

    For Madge adapters, delete NETMADGE.IN_ from the X:\I386  directory.

    For Olicom adapters, delete MFOCT35.IN_, NETOCT35.IN_and NETOCT4P.IN_from the X:\I386 directory.

  2. Edit DRVINDEX.INF and remove the entry for either the MDGNDIS5.SYS or OCT3XND5.SYS.

  3. Expand the DRIVER.CAB file (\I386) into an empty directory.  WinZip can be used to do this.

  4. Delete MDGNDIS5.SYS or the OCT3XND5.SYS from the directory where you expanded DRIVER.CAB.

  5. Put the remaining files back into a single CAB file called DRIVER.CAB.

    For example, this can be done using one of many available freeware CAB utilities.

    During tests the CABPCK14.ZIP utility was used. This utility can be freely downloaded from the following location:
    http://www.simtel.net

  6. Copy the new DRIVER.CAB to the \I386 directory.

Starting the Custom Installation

Start Windows 2000 Setup to run an unattended custom installation:

WINNT /U:X:\I386\UNATTEND.TXT /S:<installation-source> /T:<target-drive>

See Also: