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Windows Server 2012 - WDS installed and configured to deploy Windows Server 2012 on several clients.

Two problems are occuring during / after installation of Windows 2012 via WDS:

  • If the Server had Linux installed before the reinstallation, Windows Setup failes with the Error Message, that it can not read the partitions (WillWipeDisk is set to true) - is there a way (exept custom WindowsPE image) to destroy all partitioning before the windows setup begins to read the partitions?

  • If no partitioning error occurs (becouse no linux partitions are on the hdds) the installation will success. After the installation is done, the first screen is the language selection (but the language is already defined in the xml), and after that the next screen is to accept the eula :-( (which is alo defined in the xml)

Seems i have some missconfigurations in my xml's (?):

Client XML

Windows Server 2012 Image XML

I tried several configrations right now, but none of them seem to accept the language and eula config.

The weird thing is, that those configurations (eula and language) does work if we do not work with an WDS Server (Old way, without WDS - one unattended XML for all configurations).

eXe
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  • a quick question, would you like a 100% clean server every time you deploy WinServer2012? Or do you want to keep the partitioning on specific instances. Thanks! – Elliot Huffman Mar 21 '17 at 12:53
  • @ElliotLabs i do not want a full wipe of the disk - only the possible chance to install windows, after there was linux installed before - right now this is not possible with windows default utilities (may i miss something?) – eXe Mar 22 '17 at 09:07
  • Is it ok if a full wipe happens? (It is the equivalent of the diskpart clean command) – Elliot Huffman Mar 22 '17 at 11:55
  • @ElliotLabs This would be fine, if it would not take several hours. Is there a way to do this (via unattended?)? – eXe Mar 23 '17 at 10:00
  • What is the max number of hard disks that would be present in the system? (Sorry for any confusion, I do not mean a full wipe, I meant clearing the MBR/GPT area to simulate a completely new HDD) – Elliot Huffman Mar 23 '17 at 12:54
  • @ElliotLabs Yeah, clearing the mbr is exactly what we want. the max number is 2 right now, but could be any number on manual triggered installations.. what is your idea, how do you implement this workflow into an unattended installation (except with custom windows pe images, or prebooted custom wipe images)? – eXe Mar 23 '17 at 12:57
  • Have you heard of a utility called Microsoft Deployment Toolkit? It is free. I am currently building an unattend.xml file that should do the trick for you. If you use MDT it does not have these issues. (as requested I am sticking to unattend.xml) – Elliot Huffman Mar 23 '17 at 16:33
  • @ElliotLabs we are using this tool also, but it seems the `WillWipeDisk` option does not work in this unattended, if there is linux partitioning on the hdd. if there are only windows partitionings, `WillWipeDisk` works as expected. I did not see any other option to wipe / clear the partition table. maybe my option is wrong placed? The validation does not give any error if i load the xml in the `Windows System Image Manager` Tool :-/ – eXe Mar 24 '17 at 06:51

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