Tag Archives: WDS

Shortcut to testing VMware Auto-Deploy

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It’s very useful to have a VMware lab environment particularly for training needs, and outside of larger enterprises this is generally difficult to achieve owing to the high time cost of setting one up. VMware Auto Deploy remedies this problem since it allows very rapid provisioning of ESXi hosts via PXE network boot.

I wrote these notes for myself since I’m getting some hands-on experience of it to upgrade my VCP4 qualification to VCP5. EDIT – I passed the exam :). I got the information about the Auto Deploy commands from this concise guide. My post here covers how to deploy this if you already use Windows DHCP and WDS, and in such a way that uses but does not impact your production VMware infrastructure. The key to this is using the vCenter Server Appliance to create (with just a few clicks) a separate vCenter on a different VLAN, hosted on your existing ESXi hosts. I think some of the required file downloads may need you to have a proper paid for vSphere licence.

  • Create a new VLAN, add it to your ESXi hosts’ VM Network trunk ports. Define a gateway for the new subnet on your router. In a Cisco environment you would also need to configure your DHCP server as an IP-helper. That’s beyond the scope of this document, and I assume that you probably already run a DHCP server that manages multiple subnets.
  • Obtain and install the VMware vCenter Server Appliance. Log in to the vmware.com site, go as if to download vCenter server, then after the EULA you’ll see multiple files offered (the .iso you would normally download, then further down the .ovf and .vmdk files for the appliance).
  • Install this appliance on your existing ESXi environment. Follow the instructions on screen and select Embedded Database. The default credentials are root and vmware. I reduced the VM’s RAM from 8GB down to 4GB. Ideally put this VM in the new VLAN you created.
  • This appliance already has the Auto Deploy option installed, but it’s disabled (in the Appliance WebUI go to Services > Auto Deploy). Impressively, the appliance also hosts the web services for the vSphere Webclient by default, which you can access from a browser on https://YourApplianceIP:9443/vsphere-client. Given the hassle-free setup for all this, I think it’s highly likely I will transition the production environment over to this instead of running vCenter on Windows.
  • If you’re already using WDS and Microsoft DHCP, make sure you’re defining options 66 and 67 (boot server & boot filename) on a per-scope basis (not in Server Options), that way we can configure different behaviour for the new subnet.
  • Launch vSphere Client and target it at your vCenter Server Appliance. From Home, select Auto Deploy. Select Download TFTP Boot Zip. Extract these files to the root level of your REMINST share on your WDS Server. These bootstrap files are designed to live at the TFTPRoot, not in the boot folder with the other WDS boot files (file paths that are loaded after the initial boot are hard-coded, not relative).
  • By default, the WDS TFTP server only allows read access to \tmp and \boot. You need to use Regedit to edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WDSServer\Providers\WDSTFTP\ReadFilter. Append “\*” to the existing value. Where I work the WDS server only serves boot images since I favour unattended install rather than image-based deployment, so I’m ok with this relaxing of the default security.
  • Create a DHCP scope for your new subnet (including a reservation for your vCenter Server Appliance). Define option 67 as undionly.kpxe.vmw-hardwired
  • Now you can connect some test physical machines with Intel VT support to the new VLAN you created and set them to boot to PXE first in the boot order. Test this – you should get a warning that there are no associated ESXi images for this machine. Note down the displayed model name (in my case OptiPlex 745).
  • Download an ESXi offline bundle (go as if to download ESXi from vmware.com, accept the EULA, and it’s further down on the download page).
  • Use a Windows 7 machine (which already has PowerShell 2.0) to install vSphere PowerCLI.
  • Connect the PowerCLI to the vCenter Server Appliance (help on the cmdlets is available here):
    Connect-VIServer 172.16.10.100
  • Add the offline bundle as a “depot”:
    Add-EsxSoftwareDepot C:\users\me\Downloads\ESXi500-201111001.zip
  • Within this depot there are several images, and we need their names:
    Get-EsxImageProfile | fl
  • Create a deployment rule:
    New-DeployRule -Name "FirstTimeBoot" -Item "ESXi-5.0.0-20111104001-standard" -Pattern "model=OptiPlex 745"
  • Activate it:
    Add-DeployRule -DeployRule FirstTimeBoot

Now your ESXi test machines can be woken with WOL, will boot ESXi and will automatically bind to vCenter Server Appliance, where they can be managed. Perfect for home study using a VPN connection. Here is the official VMware Auto Deploy Administrator’s Guide.

Customizing Windows 7 unattend.xml

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Windows 7, like Vista, uses an XML answer file to configure the OS install. What’s neat about this is that even though you use the WAIK‘s WSIM tool to edit and validate it, you can customize it and add your own sections for software packages etc. as you can see from the example below, though these custom sections will need to be inserted after the sections that WSIM validates. This answer file can easily be parsed with VBScript using MSXML DOM, allowing for variables like passwords, driver sets, product keys and so on to be inserted at build time.

Why use an unattended install?

If you’ve always used an unattended install to build your workstations, you’ll know that they can be extremely versatile. If you already have a scripted build for XP with applications then chances are you’ll want to tweak those scripts to work with Windows 7. Sure, Sysprep images are handy too, but unless all your machines are the same, or all your packaged app requirements are identical, then you’ll need to add a load of scripted customization to them anyway. Which begs the question: why not just use an unattended install? That way you eliminate application problems that sometimes surface after image-based deployment. In a previous job I remember Roxio deployment in particular was a nightmare for this reason.

Microsoft have certainly made things considerably easier with the release of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 but, though it offers a great introduction into the process of automated system building, it lacks the flexibility of rolling your own build process – in particular if you already have a host database. When I decide to rebuild a machine, it boots Windows PE from WDS, looks up its MAC address in the host database and reads the model type from WMI and will offer default choices in my build script menus based on that. It also works out which is the nearest site file server to use for the install.

The problem with Sysprep deployment if you have a very mixed hardware environment is that you either have to:

  • Create a WIM image for each different hardware type (lots of boring maintenance when changes are required)
  • Add a huge bulk of drivers to a single WIM image with DISM
  • Use the AuditSystem phase to connect to a driver share and re-detect all the hardware

Since Windows Vista and later versions effectively just install a WIM and run a hardware detection phase during their normal install process, Sysprep no longer offers much of a speed improvement over an unattended build.

Device drivers

Additional mass storage and networking drivers that will be essential during setup are detected in the Windows PE instance (which we booted from WDS) Driver Store and ‘reflected’ into the installed OS. As you build your custom Windows PE boot image, add these using DSIM as described in my post on the subject.

Since we can read the PC model name from the BIOS via WMI, we can add a tailored device path to the offlineServicing phase of setup. This allows for easy maintenance of driver bundles, since we can arrange them by model type (which certainly beats having dozens of SoundMAX audio drivers lumped together), and we can limit which drivers are offered to each model – particularly useful when a driver causes problems for some models, as with the GMA950 driver and Adobe Flash on Intel 945G motherboards.

I noticed that this is in fact considerably neater that the method used in MDT2010’s ZTIDrivers.wsf script, which copies drivers to the local system then invokes the AuditSystem phase, running the PnP detection routines a second time, slowing down the install. Useful for an OEM like Dell I suppose, whose PCs are often started from their factory image with no connectivity, but not ideal for corporate LANs.

Sample autounattend.xml with custom sections at the end

Note 1 – I couldn’t find any examples of this online, but I discovered that the values for pre-populating the Internet Explorer 8 Search Providers can be obtained by configuring a workstation, then harvesting the registry settings from HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes. I have highlighted the relevant lines in the XML below.

Note 2 – Somewhat confusingly, in the offlineServicing phase Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE will fail to connect to your file server for drivers unless you connect to its FQDN (assuming the unattended launched the OS build from a share referencing just the NetBIOS name). Fail to do this and %systemroot%\panther\setupact.log will reveal that it fails to connect with error 0x4C3 (multiple credentials on connection to the same server). What’s bizarre is that there certainly aren’t multiple credentials in use – I use the same ones throughout. I wrote up this problem and solution in this thread on the MSFN Forums. I suspect this might be caused because I launch setup.exe from a network drive rather than mounting the OS WIM image from a WDS server (I wanted to maintain consistency with my other legacy OS builds). I have highlighted this on line 57.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SetupUILanguage>
                <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            </SetupUILanguage>
            <InputLocale>0809:00000809</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-GB</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-GB</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <ComplianceCheck>
                <DisplayReport>Never</DisplayReport>
            </ComplianceCheck>
            <Diagnostics>
                <OptIn>false</OptIn>
            </Diagnostics>
            <DiskConfiguration>
                <WillShowUI>Always</WillShowUI>
            </DiskConfiguration>
            <DynamicUpdate>
                <Enable>true</Enable>
                <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
            </DynamicUpdate>
            <ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallFrom>
                        <MetaData wcm:action="add">
                            <Key>/IMAGE/NAME</Key>
                            <Value>Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL</Value>
                        </MetaData>
                    </InstallFrom>
                </OSImage>
            </ImageInstall>
            <UserData>
                <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
                <FullName>IT</FullName>
                <Organization>My company</Organization>
                <ProductKey>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
                </ProductKey>
            </UserData>
            <EnableNetwork>true</EnableNetwork>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="offlineServicing">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <DriverPaths>
                <PathAndCredentials wcm:action="add" wcm:keyValue="common">
                    <Credentials>
                        <Domain>domain.com</Domain>
                        <Password>Password</Password>
                        <Username>unattended</Username>
                    </Credentials>
                    <Path>\\myserver.domain.com\UNATTENDED\drivers\7-x64\common</Path>
                </PathAndCredentials>
                <PathAndCredentials wcm:action="add" wcm:keyValue="build">
                    <Credentials>
                        <Domain>*value to be set by install.vbs*</Domain>
                        <Password>*value to be set by install.vbs*</Password>
                        <Username>*value to be set by install.vbs*</Username>
                    </Credentials>
                    <Path>*value to be set by install.vbs*</Path>
                </PathAndCredentials>
            </DriverPaths>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="generalize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-PnpSysprep" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <PersistAllDeviceInstalls>true</PersistAllDeviceInstalls>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-IE-InternetExplorer" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <Home_Page>http://mycompany.com</Home_Page>
            <CompanyName>My Company</CompanyName>
            <FavoritesOnTop>true</FavoritesOnTop>
            <FilterLevel>High</FilterLevel>
            <Help_Page></Help_Page>
            <DisableFirstRunWizard>true</DisableFirstRunWizard>
            <DisableWelcomePage>true</DisableWelcomePage>
            <PlaySound>true</PlaySound>
            <ShowInformationBar>true</ShowInformationBar>
            <UserAgent></UserAgent>
            <Window_Title_CN></Window_Title_CN>
            <SearchScopes>
                <Scope wcm:action="add">
                    <ScopeDefault>true</ScopeDefault>
                    <ScopeKey>Search1</ScopeKey>
                    <ScopeDisplayName>Google</ScopeDisplayName>
                    <ScopeUrl>http://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}&amp;sourceid=ie7&amp;rls=com.microsoft:{language}:{referrer:source}&amp;ie={inputEncoding?}&amp;oe={outputEncoding?}</ScopeUrl>
                    <FaviconURL>http://www.google.com/favicon.ico</FaviconURL>
                    <SuggestionsURL>http://clients5.google.com/complete/search?q={searchTerms}&amp;client=ie8&amp;mw={ie:maxWidth}&amp;sh={ie:sectionHeight}&amp;rh={ie:rowHeight}&amp;inputencoding={inputEncoding}&amp;outputencoding={outputEncoding}</SuggestionsURL>
                </Scope>
                <Scope wcm:action="add">
                    <ScopeKey>Search2</ScopeKey>
                    <ScopeDisplayName>Bing</ScopeDisplayName>
                    <FaviconURL>http://www.bing.com/favicon.ico</FaviconURL>
                    <ScopeUrl>http://www.bing.com/search?q={searchTerms}&amp;form=IE8SRC&amp;src=IE-SearchBox</ScopeUrl>
                    <SuggestionsURL>http://api.bing.com/qsml.aspx?query={searchTerms}&amp;market={Language}&amp;form=IE8SSC&amp;maxwidth={ie:maxWidth}&amp;rowheight={ie:rowHeight}&amp;sectionHeight={ie:sectionHeight}</SuggestionsURL>
                </Scope>
            </SearchScopes>
            <EnableLinksBar>false</EnableLinksBar>
            <PrintBackground>true</PrintBackground>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-RemoteAssistance-Exe" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <fAllowFullControl>true</fAllowFullControl>
            <fAllowToGetHelp>true</fAllowToGetHelp>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-UX" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SkipAutoActivation>true</SkipAutoActivation>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <ComputerName>*</ComputerName>
            <ProductKey>XXXXX-YYYYY-ZZZZZ-YYYYY-XXXXX</ProductKey>
            <RegisteredOrganization>My Company</RegisteredOrganization>
            <RegisteredOwner>IT</RegisteredOwner>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-LocalSessionManager" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <fDenyTSConnections>false</fDenyTSConnections>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <Identification>
                <Credentials>
                    <Domain>*value to be set by install.vbs*</Domain>
                    <Password>*value to be set by install.vbs*</Password>
                    <Username>*value to be set by install.vbs*</Username>
                </Credentials>
                <JoinDomain>domain.com</JoinDomain>
                <MachineObjectOU>OU=Windows 7,OU=Workstations,DC=domain,DC=com</MachineObjectOU>
            </Identification>
        </component>
        <component name="Networking-MPSSVC-Svc" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <DomainProfile_EnableFirewall>false</DomainProfile_EnableFirewall>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RDP-WinStationExtensions" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <UserAuthentication>1</UserAuthentication>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SystemLocale>en-GB</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-GB</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>0809:00000809</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <RegisteredOrganization>My Company</RegisteredOrganization>
            <RegisteredOwner>IT</RegisteredOwner>
            <TimeZone>GMT Standard Time</TimeZone>
            <OEMInformation>
                <Manufacturer>*</Manufacturer>
                <Model>*</Model>
            </OEMInformation>
            <OOBE>
                <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
                <NetworkLocation>Work</NetworkLocation>
                <ProtectYourPC>1</ProtectYourPC>
            </OOBE>
            <UserAccounts>
                <AdministratorPassword>
                    <Value>MwBifhgftytredjghAcwB0AHIAYQ584jkhkgtEAcwBzAHcAbwByAGQA</Value>
                    <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                </AdministratorPassword>
                <LocalAccounts>
                    <LocalAccount wcm:action="add">
                        <Password>
                            <Value>QQBTAEUANABoAGchgfhgfd357wrysAHMAcwB3AG8AcgBkAA==</Value>
                            <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                        </Password>
                        <Name>cust_localuser</Name>
                        <DisplayName>cust_localuser</DisplayName>
                        <Description>Dummy user required for unattended - delete later</Description>
                        <Group>users</Group>
                    </LocalAccount>
                </LocalAccounts>
            </UserAccounts>
            <VisualEffects>
                <FontSmoothing>ClearType</FontSmoothing>
            </VisualEffects>
            <FirstLogonCommands>
                <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
                    <Order>1</Order>
                    <Description>Connect to unattended share</Description>
                    <CommandLine>net use *value to be set by install.vbs*</CommandLine>
                </SynchronousCommand>
                <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
                    <Order>2</Order>
                    <Description>Launch package installer</Description>
                    <CommandLine>cscript *value to be set by install.vbs*</CommandLine>
                    <RequiresUserInput>true</RequiresUserInput>
                </SynchronousCommand>
            </FirstLogonCommands>
            <AutoLogon>
                <Password>
                    <Value>MwBifhgftytredjghAcwB0AHIAYQ584jkhkgtEAcwBzAHcAbwByAGQA</Value>
                    <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                </Password>
                <Username>Administrator</Username>
                <LogonCount>1</LogonCount>
                <Enabled>true</Enabled>
            </AutoLogon>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim://myserver/unattended/os/7-x64/sources/install.wim#Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
    <!-- MY COMPANY CUSTOMIZATIONS BELOW-->
    <mycompany:custom xmlns:mycompany="urn:schemas-domain-com:mycompany">
        <!-- build description -->
        <cust_description>standard workstation</cust_description>
        <!-- list of packages to install in order. Descriptions are read from U:\scripts\packages.csv -->
        <cust_packages>office2k7.cmd,adobe.cmd,flash.cmd,java.cmd,fonts.cmd</cust_packages>
        <!-- start of the model name string, as reported by WMI, comma separated - allows auto-selection of build. -->
        <cust_models>OptiPlex 745,OptiPlex GX620,VMware Virtual Platform</cust_models>
        <!-- do we want packages.vbs to activate Windows? -->
        <cust_activate>false</cust_activate>
        <!-- do we want a hibernation file wasting disk space? If set to false packages.vbs will disable hibernation support -->
        <cust_hibernate>false</cust_hibernate>
    </mycompany:custom>
</unattend>
 

Sample VBScript code for parsing the XML using MSXML DOM

This is not a complete script – it’s intended purely to illustrate the concept.

'New OS - 7/Vista/2008/2008R2

'read the answer file
Set objXML = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
objXML.Async = "False"
objXML.Load(strMedia & "\sifs\" & strOS & "\" & strBuild & ".xml")

'Additional mass storage and Networking drivers that will be essential for the rest of the build are detected in the
'running Windows PE instance's Driver Store and reflected into the installed OS

'insert the non-WinPE PnP driver discovery paths and credentials for the offlineServicing pass
strXPath = "/unattend/settings[@pass='offlineServicing']/component[@name='Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE']/DriverPaths/PathAndCredentials/Credentials"
'we need to iterate since there may be several sets of credentials (one for each driver path)
Set colNodes=objXML.selectNodes(strXPath & "/Domain")
For Each objNode In colNodes
  objNode.Text = strDomainName
Next
Set colNodes=objXML.selectNodes(strXPath & "/Password")
For Each objNode In colNodes
  objNode.Text = strPass
Next
Set colNodes=objXML.selectNodes(strXPath & "/Username")
For Each objNode In colNodes
  objNode.Text = strUser  
Next

'Insert hostname
strXPath = "/unattend/settings[@pass='specialize']/component[@name='Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup']/ComputerName"
Set objNode=objXML.selectSingleNode(strXPath)
objNode.Text = strComputerName

'insert credentials for Domain join
On Error Resume Next
strXPath = "/unattend/settings[@pass='specialize']/component[@name='Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin']/Identification/Credentials"
Set objNode=objXML.selectSingleNode(strXPath & "/Domain")
If Err.Number = 0 Then
  'Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin exists - carry on modifying (workgroup builds won't have this section in the XML)
  objNode.Text = strDomainName
  Set objNode=objXML.selectSingleNode(strXPath & "/Password")
  objNode.Text = strPass
  Set objNode=objXML.selectSingleNode(strXPath & "/Username") 
  objNode.Text = strUser
End If
On Error Goto 0

'insert manufacturer and model into OEMinfo
strXPath = "/unattend/settings[@pass='oobeSystem']/component[@name='Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup']/OEMInformation/Manufacturer"
Set objNode=objXML.selectSingleNode(strXPath)
objNode.Text = strManufacturer
strXPath = "/unattend/settings[@pass='oobeSystem']/component[@name='Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup']/OEMInformation/Model"
Set objNode=objXML.selectSingleNode(strXPath)
objNode.Text = strModel & " - Your Company"

strXPath = "/unattend/settings[@pass='oobeSystem']/component[@name='Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup']/FirstLogonCommands/SynchronousCommand/CommandLine"
Set colNodes=objXML.selectNodes(strXPath)
For Each objNode In ColNodes
  'Insert the unattended share info and credentials
  If InStr (objNode.Text,"net use *value to be set by install.vbs*") Then
    objNode.Text = "net use " & strMedia & " \\" & strInstallServer & "\" & strShare & " /user:" & strUser & "@" & strDomainName & " " & strPass & " /persistent:no"
  End If
  'Record our build file selection for the package installer later
  If InStr (objNode.Text,"cscript *value to be set by install.vbs*") Then
    objNode.Text = "cscript //nologo " & strMedia & "\scripts\packages.vbs " & strMedia & " " & strOS & " " & strBuild & ".xml"
  End If
Next

Set objNode = Nothing
'write out the answer file
objXML.Save "x:\autounattend.xml" 
Set objXML = Nothing