Sysprep answer file.....WHY!?!?!?

Okay, I glanced briefly through that article. From what I saw, the author is
simply explaining how to set the OOBE pass so that the end-user doesn't have
to go through the first run steps (entering username, password, locale
etc.). The author it seems wants to deploy the system in a ready-to-boot in
2 minutes state. I'm not sure what sort of environment this person is
deploying into but I can't see why he's going through such hassle to specify
each and every little detail for the end-user. For example, end-users should
accept the EULA themselves, and they must enter their own product key. If
you specifiy a unique product key, and that system is sent out to person A
who activates, and then you deploy the same image file to person B and they
try to activate it won't work. And why not let users enter their own
password, username and pick their own options for Vista?

The only reason I can see this guy using sysprep in this manner is either
for playing around, or he's deploying inside a lab where he wants all his
systems to have the same username/password etc.)


"Duncan" <duncan@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:%23HDOLaotHHA.1204@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> Have you read the OPK userguide? It's a very extensive document, and it
> explains in the introduction how to use the tool. As well, in the WSIM
> program, you can right-click on any item and it click help and it explains
> what that function/component does. The answerfile uses all 7 sections of
> the file - the author must have gotten that wrong. For example, it most
> certainly uses the WinPE pass. Each pass does a different job, you can
> skip AuditUser and AuditSystem if you don't need those passes though of
> course and leave them empty.
>
> I'd start by sitting down and reading the help file, and then you should
> get a better understanding of what you are doing.
>
> Cheers
>
>
> "Rich Martinez (RRCC)" <RichMartinezRRCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> in message news:440FFB47-4040-4CEE-B00E-CEAD31785125@microsoft.com...

>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm still trying to get Windows Vista to work with the answer file I
>> built
>> and so I did a little bit of research and found an article that basically
>> said that the XML file has 7 passes but it only pays attention to pass 4
>> (specialize) and pass 7 (OOBE). Also, this article mentions that certain
>> settings have to be put in certain passes for them to work. I have not
>> tried
>> any of this as of yet but why won't Microsoft just make this easy?
>> People
>> are going to use this tool and go crazy because it won't work. The guy
>> who
>> wrote the article spent a whole lot of time doing trial and error.
>>
>> Also, sysprep will only run one time before you get a fatal error.
>> Microsoft has a fix, which I got from them and applied but it does not
>> fix
>> the problem. How are we supposed to test our answer files??? The
>> website
>> for the above mentioned article is http://www.minasi.com.
>>
>> Any thoughts or hellp would be appreciated
>>
>> Thaanks,
>> Rich

>