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, to perform unattended Windows installations, there is no need to use third-party software or to modify .iso or .wim files. Just follow these steps:

To install Windows from a DVD

1. Use the form as follows:
   1. Adjust the settings as you see fit.
   2. Click the Download .xml file button at the bottom of the page.
2. Copy the autounattend.xml file to the root folder of a USB flash drive and connect it to the computer.
3. Boot from the DVD drive to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows from a USB flash drive

1. Use the form as follows:
   1. Adjust the settings as you see fit.
   2. Click the Download .xml file button at the bottom of the page.
2. Make a bootable USB flash drive that contains the Windows Setup files, using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool or tools already built into Windows.
3. Copy the autounattend.xml file to the root folder of the USB flash drive and connect it to the computer.
4. Boot from the USB flash drive to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in Oracle VirtualBox

1. Use the form as follows:
   1. Select the Install Oracle VirtualBox Guest Additions checkbox.
   2. Adjust the other settings as you see fit.
   3. Click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button at the bottom of the page to download the unattend.iso image.
2. The VirtualBox UI comes in two flavors, Basic and Expert, and the following screenshots all use Basic mode. To switch to Basic mode, use the Preferences dialog:
3. Create your VM and choose the Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64_v2.iso. Since we want to use our own autounattend.xml file and not the one provided by VirtualBox, deselect the Proceed with Unattended Installation setting:
4. Open the Settings dialog for the new VM and attach two more images as optical drives:
   1. The Guest Additions image, which can be found at C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
   2. The unattend.iso image downloaded earlier
   
5. Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

To install Windows on a virtual machine in VMware Workstation

1. Use the form as follows:
   1. Select the Install VMware Tools checkbox.
   2. Adjust the other settings as you see fit.
   3. Click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button at the bottom of the page to download the unattend.iso image.
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:
   1. The Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64_v2.iso
   2. The VMware Tools image, which can be found at C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\windows.iso
   3. 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. Use the form as follows:
   1. Select the Install VirtIO drivers, VirtIO Guest Tools and QEMU Guest Agent checkbox.
   2. Select the Generate a .cmd script to handle the Windows PE stage: option. This will make your SCSI disks accessible to Windows Setup.
   3. Adjust the other settings as you see fit.
   4. Click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button at the bottom of the page to download the unattend.iso image.
2. Upload these .iso files to Proxmox:
   1. The Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64_v2.iso
   2. 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
   3. 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. Use the form as follows:
   1. Adjust the settings as you see fit. Note that there is no option to install the vmguest.iso image because it is no longer needed or included in Hyper-V.
   2. Click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button at the bottom of the page to download the unattend.iso image.
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. Use the form as follows:
   1. Select the Install Parallels Tools for Parallels Desktop checkbox.
   2. Adjust the other settings as you see fit.
   3. Click the Download .xml wrapped in .iso file button at the bottom of the page to download the unattend.iso image.
2. Attach the following images to your VM as optical drives:
   1. The Windows installation image, such as Win11_25H2_English_x64_v2.iso
   2. 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
   3. The unattend.iso image downloaded earlier
3. Start the VM to begin the unattended installation.

Using the $OEM$ folder

You can instruct Windows Setup to look for a folder named $OEM$ on your installation medium and recursively copy its contents to the target system during the PE stage. When you use an autounattend.xml file, include the <UseConfigurationSet>true</UseConfigurationSet> element to trigger this behavior. In my generator, checking the Use a distribution share / configuration set option will create this element.

See Microsoft's documentation for how the $OEM$ folder and its subfolders are processed. For example, you could create your installation medium as follows:

• boot
• efi
• sources
• support
• autorun.inf
• bootmgr
• bootmgr.efi
• setup.exe
• autounattend.xml
• $OEM$
  • $1
    • Users
      • Public
        • Desktop
          • foo.txt

During the PE stage, Windows Setup will copy the file in the $OEM$ folder to the target volume, preserving its relative path. Together with the applied Windows image, the C:\ drive would look like this when the installation has finished:

• Program Files
• Program Files (x86)
• Users
  • Public
    • Desktop
      • foo.txt
  • …
• Windows

Using the $WinPEDriver$ folder

When you place a folder named $WinPEDriver$ on your installation medium, Windows Setup will recursively scan this folder for .inf files and automatically install the corresponding device drivers during the PE stage.

Some vendors provide driver packages simply as .zip files, others may use self-extracting archives as .exe files. In any case, a suitable device driver will typically consist of one .inf, .sys and .cat file each. For example, to install Intel Wi-Fi drivers, download the .zip file, unzip it and place its contents in the $WinPEDriver$ folder. The folder structure on your installation medium would then look like this:

• boot
• efi
• sources
• support
• autorun.inf
• bootmgr
• bootmgr.efi
• setup.exe
• autounattend.xml
• $WinPEDriver$
  • WiFi-24.50.0-Driver64-Win10-Win11
    • netwtw08.cat
    • Netwtw08.INF
    • NETwtw08.sys
    • …

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 or update 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;

That scheduled task had previously executed VBScript code. VBScript has since been deprecated by Microsoft. To migrate the task from VBScript to PowerShell, run this command in an elevated PowerShell session:

$action = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute '%windir%\System32\conhost.exe' -Argument '--headless %windir%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command "Set-ItemProperty -Path ''Registry::HKCU\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings\*'' -Name ''IsPromoted'' -Value 1 -Type ''DWord'';"';
Set-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'ShowAllTrayIcons' -Action $action;
Remove-Item -LiteralPath "${env:windir}\Setup\Scripts\ShowAllTrayIcons.vbs";

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';

Use PowerShell instead of VBScript to move active hours

The scheduled task MoveActiveHours, which periodically moves your active hours in order to prevent Windows Update from rebooting your computer, had previously executed VBScript code. VBScript has since been deprecated by Microsoft. To migrate the task from VBScript to PowerShell, run this command in an elevated PowerShell session:

$action = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute '%windir%\System32\conhost.exe' -Argument '--headless %windir%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command "$p = @{ LiteralPath = ''Registry::HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings''; Type = ''DWord''; }; $h = [datetime]::Now.Hour; Set-ItemProperty @p -Name ''ActiveHoursStart'' -Value (($h + 23) % 24); Set-ItemProperty @p -Name ''ActiveHoursEnd'' -Value (($h + 11) % 24); Set-ItemProperty @p -Name ''SmartActiveHoursState'' -Value 0;"';
Set-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'MoveActiveHours' -Action $action;
Remove-Item -LiteralPath "${env:windir}\Setup\Scripts\MoveActiveHours.vbs";

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_v2.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 these character encoding aspects:
  • 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, several files 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.