- Adding Files to the Installation
- Adding Third-Party Device Drivers
- Relocating System Directories
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Relocating System Directories
Moving on to another stupid answer-file trick: relocating system directories. By default, the setup program installs Windows 2000 in C:\Winnt. It creates user profiles in C:\Documents and Settings. These directories aren't always best, though. For example, a rather good best practice is to use a consistent folder structure throughout the organization. That often means installing Windows 2000 in C:\Windows and almost always means creating user profiles in C:\Windows\Profiles. Here's how to do this:
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Windows Folder—To relocate the Windows folder, add TargetPath = "\Windows" to the [Unattended] section of your answer file.
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User Profile Folder—To relocate the user profile folders, add ProfilesDir = "%SystemDrive%\Profiles" to the [GuiUnattended] section of your answer file. Note that you must begin this value with %SystemDrive% as shown.
That's the last of the stupid answer-file tricks you learn here. Listing 3 is a complete answer file that illustrates everything you learned over the last few articles. Answer files have many more capabilities, though. To learn more about them, take a look at Unattend.doc on the Windows 2000 Resource Kit. In my next article, I talk about Sysprep and disk-imaging software such as Symantec Ghost.
Listing 3
[UserData]
OrgName = "Jerry Honeycutt"
ProductID = "99999-99999-99999-99999-99999"
[Unattended]
DriverSigningPolicy = "Ignore"
FileSystem = "ConvertNTFS"
OemPnPDriversPath = "Drivers"
OemPreinstall = "Yes"
OemSkipEula = "Yes"
TargetPath = "\Windows"
UnattendMode = "ReadOnly"
[GuiUnattended]
OEMSkipRegional = "1"
OEMSkipWelcome = "1"
ProfilesDir = "%SystemDrive%\Profiles"
TimeZone = "020"
[Display]
BitsPerPel = "16"
Xresolution = "1024"
Yresolution = "768"
[TapiLocation]
AreaCode = "972"
CountryCode = "1"
Dialing = "Tone"
[Identification]
JoinDomain = "HONEYCUTT"
[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents = "Yes"