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 use the original .iso file from Microsoft, like Win11_24H2_English_x64.iso, and follow these steps:

To install Windows from a DVD

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

To install Windows from a USB drive

Fill out the form, then click the button.
Copy the autounattend.xml file to the root folder of the USB drive that contains the Windows Setup files and connect it to the computer. (The autounattend.xml file will be located in the same folder as setup.exe.)
Boot from the USB drive to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in VMware Workstation

Fill out the form, make sure to check Install VMware Tools, then click the button.
Create your VM. If VMware uses Easy Install, remove the drive where autoinst.flp or autoinst.iso are attached:
Attach the following images to your VM as optical drives:
- The Windows installation image, such as Win11_24H2_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
Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Oracle VirtualBox

Fill out the form, make sure to check Install Oracle VirtualBox Guest Additions, then click the button.
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:
Attach the following images to your VM as optical drives:
- The Windows installation image, such as Win11_24H2_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
Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Proxmox VE

Fill out the form, make sure to check Install VirtIO Guest Tools and QEMU Guest Agent, then click the button.
Upload these .iso files to Proxmox:
- The Windows installation image, such as Win11_24H2_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
Create your VM and configure its CD/DVD drives as follows:
Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Hyper-V

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

Troubleshooting

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

Tools like Ventoy or 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.
Use the original Windows 10 or 11 .iso images from Microsoft, like Win11_24H2_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 your autounattend.xml file contains a line netsh.exe wlan add profile filename="C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\wifi.xml" user=all"; that ends with the characters ";, large parts of the unattended setup will be skipped. This bug has since been corrected. Refresh your autounattend.xml file and repeat the installation.
When you edit an autounattend.xml file manually, make sure it contains a <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' standalone='yes' ?> XML declaration and does not contain a UTF-8 byte-order mark.

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

Path	Phase	Contents
`X:\Windows\setupact.log` `X:\Windows\setuperr.log`	Windows PE	Windows Setup logs for PE phase. Inspect these files when Windows Setup does not seem to apply your `autounattend.xml` file.
`X:\diskpart.log`	Windows PE	Output of `diskpart` script to partition and format your hard drive.
`C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\Specialize.log` `C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\DefaultUser.log` `C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\FirstLogon.log` `%TEMP%\UserOnce.log`	After Windows has been installed	Output of custom scripts, WLAN setup and various other configuration actions.
`C:\Windows\Temp\remove-packages.log` (previously) `C:\Windows\Temp\remove-features.log` (previously) `C:\Windows\Temp\remove-caps.log` (previously) `C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\RemovePackages.log` `C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\RemoveFeatures.log` `C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\RemoveCapabilities.log`	After Windows has been installed	Logs results of bloatware removal.
`C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\SetComputerName.log`	After Windows has been installed	Output of PowerShell script that sets your computer's name.