Admin Tips
- Windows Server 2008/2003/2000/XP/NT Administrator Knowledge Base
  - Windows Vista
    - Admin Tips
      - Deployment
        Specifying the target partition for unattended install of Vista

Section(s): Deployment
Published on Jul 15, 2008.
Last Modified on Jul 03, 2008.
Last Modified by Mitch Tulloch.
Rating: Not Rated

Here is a tip on specifying the target partition when performing an unattended install of Windows Vista.

When you create an answer file for unattended installation of Vista, you must specify which partition and which disk drive you want to install the operating system onto. You normally do this by configuring the following component:

Microsoft-Windows-Setup\InstallImage\OSImage\InstallTo

Normally, you configure the settings named DiskID and PartitionID for this component. But if you simply want to install Vista on the first partition of your first hard drive, leave these settings blank and instead go to the following component:

Microsoft-Windows-Setup\InstallImage\OSImage

and set the value of InstallToAvailablePartition to True.

For more information on deploying Vista, see my series of articles titled Deploying Vista right here on WindowsNetworking.com.

About Mitch Tulloch

Mitch Tulloch was lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is the book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. Mitch was also the author of Introducing Windows Server 2008 and technical project lead for the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit, both books also from Microsoft Press. For more information on these and other books by Mitch, see www.mtit.com .