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:
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.