In the company I work for, we occasionally need to build out servers which we sell to clients. Part of this process includes installing an OS, and in the past, we have used Windows 10 Ent. IoT and Windows Server 2019. Now, with the release of Windows 11 Ent. IoT recently, we are hoping to switch to this OS.
I currently have a flash drive which I purposed into a Ventoy bootloader for the housing of multiple ISOs (as we occasionally still need to load these other operating systems). Previously, however, we would only really embed the product key into the ISO and be forced to go through the rest of the setup process manually. Aside from automating drive partitioning and install location (which I have omitted from the answer file on purpose), I'm looking to use autounattend and/or sysprep to achieve a fully automated installation process.
The problem is, when booting to that ISO from Ventoy with the autounattend.xml file, it will only load a black screen with a solid console cursor for a few seconds and then return to the Ventoy menu. This tells me that it does not recognize that ISO as bootable. I have not made changes to the ISO aside from adding the autounattend.xml file to the root. I'm unsure if this is because it's Windows 11, or if it is perhaps a problem elsewhere. I've seen online that supposedly, you can use autounattend with just the ISO (as in, not by using software like Rufus to mount the ISO to a USB and placing the file in the root of the USB). In WSIM, there are no validation errors, at least... Anyways, here is my autounattend file. I've changed the user information and product key for obvious reasons. Any help is greatly appreciated.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<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">
<InputLocale>0409:00000409</InputLocale>
<SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
<UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
<UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback>
<UserLocale>en-US</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">
<TimeZone>Central Standard Time</TimeZone>
<OOBE>
<HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
<HideLocalAccountScreen>true</HideLocalAccountScreen>
<HideOnlineAccountScreens>true</HideOnlineAccountScreens>
<HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>true</HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>
<NetworkLocation>Home</NetworkLocation>
<ProtectYourPC>3</ProtectYourPC>
<SkipMachineOOBE>true</SkipMachineOOBE>
<SkipUserOOBE>true</SkipUserOOBE>
</OOBE>
<UserAccounts>
<AdministratorPassword>
<PlainText>true</PlainText>
<Value></Value>
</AdministratorPassword>
<LocalAccounts>
<LocalAccount wcm:action="add">
<Group>Administrators</Group>
<Name>User</Name>
<Password>
<PlainText>true</PlainText>
<Value>Password</Value>
</Password>
</LocalAccount>
</LocalAccounts>
</UserAccounts>
</component>
</settings>
<settings pass="specialize">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" 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">
<RunSynchronous>
<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
<Order>1</Order>
<Path>net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited</Path>
<WillReboot>Never</WillReboot>
</RunSynchronousCommand>
<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
<Order>2</Order>
<Path>net user User /active:Yes</Path>
<WillReboot>Never</WillReboot>
</RunSynchronousCommand>
</RunSynchronous>
</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-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>
<JoinWorkgroup>WORKGROUP</JoinWorkgroup>
</Identification>
</component>
</settings>
<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">
<InputLocale>0409:00000409</InputLocale>
<SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
<UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
<UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback>
<UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
<SetupUILanguage>
<UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
</SetupUILanguage>
</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">
<Diagnostics>
<OptIn>false</OptIn>
</Diagnostics>
<DynamicUpdate>
<Enable>false</Enable>
<WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
</DynamicUpdate>
<UserData>
<AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
<ProductKey>
<Key>omitted</Key>
</ProductKey>
</UserData>
</component>
</settings>
</unattend>
