Use autounattend.xml files to install Windows 10/11

Windows installation instructions

Windows Setup will automatically search for autounattend.xml files at various locations, including the root folders of each removable drive. Therefore, you do not need any third-party software, and you do not need to modify .iso or .wim files. Just follow these steps:

To install Windows from a DVD

1. Fill out the form, then click the Download .xml file button.
2. Copy the autounattend.xml file to the root folder of a USB drive and connect it to the computer.
3. Boot from the DVD drive to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows from a USB drive

1. Fill out the form, then click the Download .xml file button.
2. Make a bootable USB drive that contains the Windows Setup files, either with Microsoft's Media Creation Tool or by copying an .iso image to the USB drive.
3. Copy the autounattend.xml file to the root folder of the USB drive and connect it to the computer.
4. Boot from the USB drive to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in VMware Workstation

1. Fill out the form, make sure to check Install VMware Tools, then click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button.
2. Create your VM. If VMware uses Easy Install, remove the drive where autoinst.flp or autoinst.iso are attached:
3. Attach the following images to your VM as optical drives:
   • The Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64.iso
   • The VMware Tools image, which can be found at C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\windows.iso
   • The unattend.iso image downloaded earlier
4. Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Oracle VirtualBox

1. Fill out the form, make sure to check Install Oracle VirtualBox Guest Additions, then click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button.
2. Create your VM. Since we want to use our own autounattend.xml file and not the one provided by VirtualBox, check the Skip Unattended Installation setting:
3. Attach the following images to your VM as optical drives:
   • The Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64.iso
   • The Guest Additions image, which can be found at C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
   • The unattend.iso image downloaded earlier
   
4. Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Proxmox VE

1. Fill out the form, make sure to check Install VirtIO Guest Tools and QEMU Guest Agent, then click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button.
2. Upload these .iso files to Proxmox:
   • The Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64.iso
   • The virtio-win-*.iso image, which contains the virtio-win-guest-tools.exe installer and can be downloaded in its latest stable or its most recent version
   • The unattend.iso image downloaded earlier
3. Create your VM and configure its CD/DVD drives as follows:
4. Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Hyper-V

1. Fill out the form, then click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button. (Note that there is no option to install the vmguest.iso image because it is no longer needed or included in Hyper-V.)
2. Create your VM.
3. Add an additional DVD drive to the VM and attach the unattend.iso image downloaded earlier:
4. Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Parallels Desktop for Mac

1. Fill out the form, make sure to check Install Parallels Tools for Parallels Desktop, then click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button.
2. Attach the following images to your VM as optical drives:
   • The Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64.iso
   • The Parallels Tools image appropriate for your processor architecture (prl-tools-win.iso or prl-tools-win-arm.iso), which can be found at /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/Tools
   • The unattend.iso image downloaded earlier
3. Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

Undoing certain customizations

Restore default lock keys behavior

To undo behaviors set through the Lock key settings section, run this command in an elevated PowerShell session:

Remove-ItemProperty -LiteralPath 'Registry::HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout' -Name 'Scancode Map';

Delete the scheduled task that periodically sets all tray icons visible

To undo the Always show all tray icons setting in Windows 11, run this command in an elevated PowerShell session:

Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'ShowAllTrayIcons' | Unregister-ScheduledTask -Confirm:$false;

Disable classic context menu in Windows 11

To undo the Use classic context (right-click) menu in Windows 11 setting, run this command in PowerShell:

Remove-Item -LiteralPath 'Registry::HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32';

Re-enable UAC

To undo the Disable User Account Control (UAC) setting, run this command in an elevated PowerShell session and reboot the computer:

Set-ItemProperty -LiteralPath 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System' -Name 'EnableLUA' -Value 1 -Type 'DWord';

Reset PowerShell execution policy

To undo the Allow execution of PowerShell script files setting, run this command in an elevated PowerShell session:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope 'LocalMachine' -ExecutionPolicy 'Undefined' -Force;

Enable Manage devices button in Settings

When the Disable app suggestions / Content Delivery Manager setting was checked, as a side effect the Manage devices button in the Mobile devices section in Settings is disabled. To enable that button, run this command in an elevated PowerShell session and reboot the computer:

Set-ItemProperty -LiteralPath 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent' -Name 'DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures' -Value 0 -Type 'DWord';

Troubleshooting

autounattend.xml files generated by this service work with any version of Windows 10 and Windows 11, including 24H2 and 25H2, in both ConX and legacy setup modes. When an answer file is not processed as expected, check for the following:

• Tools like Rufus might insert their own autounattend.xml file into the Windows Setup files that is higher up in the search order and thus takes preference over your autounattend.xml file. Check the X:\Windows\setupact.log log file to determine which answer files are present. Also note that you can easily create Windows installation media without additional software.
• Use the original Windows 10 or 11 .iso images from Microsoft, like Win11_25H2_English_x64.iso. There is hardly a reason to modify .iso or .wim files anyway – use custom scripts in your autounattend.xml file instead.
• When you edit an autounattend.xml file manually, pay attention to its character encoding:
  • The file must have a <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> XML declaration.
  • The file must not have a UTF-8 byte-order mark.
  • The file must not contain any raw non-ASCII characters. Use numerical character references such as   instead.

The unattended installation writes error messages and other output to various log files:

Security considerations

During Windows Setup, file are created that may contain sensitive data:

• Windows Setup places copies of your autounattend.xml file at C:\Windows\Panther\unattend.xml and C:\Windows\Panther\unattend-original.xml. These files may contain account passwords.
• C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\Wifi.xml will contain the Wi-Fi profile you entered, including the password.

Previous versions of the generator did not delete these files. The current version of the generator does delete them, unless the Keep sensitive files checkbox is selected.

Furthermore, files embeddeded in the autounattend.xml file will be extracted to the C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts folder. Check these files when you have entered sensitive data in custom scripts.