We are a computer repair company, we install windows many times a day, i've found that Windows Server and WDS really save me a lot of time, I have two sites, each with their own server, site one is running 2008r2 with WDS and the imageunattend.xml files all work fine, for the new site i decided to go with server 2012, installed WDS, and copied over all of the images from the other server, the WDSClientUnattend files work but the ImageUnattends don't work at all, it's as if they are not even there. I've installed WAIK and validated all the files and it says they are fine, i've also tried copying the files elsewhere and using the WDS snap-in to add the ImageUnattend to the wim so it creates it's own copy but still nothing.

Please Help,

Regards

We are a computer repair company, we install windows many times a day, i've found that Windows Server and WDS really save me a lot of time, I have two sites, each with their own server, site one is running 2008r2 with WDS and the imageunattend.xml files all work fine, for the new site i decided to go with server 2012, installed WDS, and copied over all of the images from the other server, the WDSClientUnattend files work but the ImageUnattends don't work at all, it's as if they are not even there. I've installed WAIK and validated all the files and it says they are fine, i've also tried copying the files elsewhere and using the WDS snap-in to add the ImageUnattend to the wim so it creates it's own copy but still nothing.

Please Help,

Regards

A little more info, in C:\Windows\Panther\setupact.log, when it's looking for an unattend.xml to pass the oobe it just finds the ClientUnattend again and says it is not applicable, so it actually doesn't seem to be sharing the imageunattend at all.

We are a computer repair company, we install windows many times a day, i've found that Windows Server and WDS really save me a lot of time, I have two sites, each with their own server, site one is running 2008r2 with WDS and the imageunattend.xml files all work fine, for the new site i decided to go with server 2012, installed WDS, and copied over all of the images from the other server, the WDSClientUnattend files work but the ImageUnattends don't work at all, it's as if they are not even there. I've installed WAIK and validated all the files and it says they are fine, i've also tried copying the files elsewhere and using the WDS snap-in to add the ImageUnattend to the wim so it creates it's own copy but still nothing.

Please Help,

Regards

A little more info, in C:\Windows\Panther\setupact.log, when it's looking for an unattend.xml to pass the oobe it just finds the ClientUnattend again and says it is not applicable, so it actually doesn't seem to be sharing the imageunattend at all.

Right, if i look at a machine installed from WDS 2012, C:\Windows\Panther\Unattend.xml is a copy of the WDSClientUnattend, but if i look at a machine from WDS 2008r2 the same file is a copy of my ImageUnattend.xml. I'm going to disable the WDSClientUnattend and install again,see what it finds.

Wish me luck

I have a work around, not a proper solution though, if i rename the file unattend.xml and place it in %ImageName%\$OEM$\$1\Windows\Panther, the setup picks it up and uses it, i haven't turned WDSClientUnattend back on yet to see if there is any conflict but that's my next step, at least i have the unattends working again in a round about sort of way, i do think this in an issue is Server 2012 WDS though and i hope tyhey sort it out.

I hope my ramblings can help somebody else though.

Regards,

Ashton Watts

Laptops Northants

I am having exactly the same problem and can't find any information on a fix.  I have one 2003 and one 2008 R2 WDS server both of which are working but if I copy the image and xml file to my new 2012 server I get the same problem

It looks like it is only a problem when using Windows 7 boot images, when we use a Windows 8 one it works fine.  We were using existing boot images as we knew they contained the right drivers for our legacy devices.  It looks like we will have to migrate to Windows 8 boot images sooner rather than later.