Hello everyone. I have searched for multiple topics regarding this issue, and i have seen conflicting information or just old information that i try to use but no matter what i do i get errors when booting.

What i want to do, is for every image out there to install with the same partitioning scheme that windows by default uses, which is to create a small boot partition (300mb i believe on 8.1) and then create another partition with the rest of the space and install windows on it.

I have tried to do it with a image based .xml unattended file, but searching i believe i should use a WDS based .xml file instead.

Here is my relevant .xml settings:

<settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <DiskConfiguration>
                <Disk wcm:action="add">
                    <CreatePartitions>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <Size>350</Size>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Order>2</Order>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                            <Extend>true</Extend>
                        </CreatePartition>
                    </CreatePartitions>
                    <ModifyPartitions>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                            <Label>System</Label>
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Active>true</Active>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Order>2</Order>
                            <PartitionID>2</PartitionID>
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>Windows</Label>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                    </ModifyPartitions>
                    <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                    <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk>
                </Disk>
            </DiskConfiguration>
            <ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallTo>
                        <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                        <PartitionID>2</PartitionID>
                    </InstallTo>
                </OSImage>
            </ImageInstall>
        </component>
</settings>

When i test, i get an error on the line that says wcm:action="add".

Can someone point my error?

This is in 2008 r2 as a wds server, testing with win 8.1 client

It *looks* OK, so have you validated the answer file in WSIM?

bah, turns out it was a dumb copy and paste bug of mine, i copied those settings from another file i had, and forgot to declare "wcm" on the component of the resulting file (which i correctly typed above)

• Marked as answer by David WoltersModerator 16 hours 43 minutes ago