Solved Windows 11 24h2 Unattend Installation Problems

raddirad · Sep 19, 2024

Hi,

I work for a company that provides automated OS installations (Windows and Linux) for it's users/customers.

I am having problems to install Win11 24h2 with an unattended installation. After the WinPE part/setup.exe the machine doesn't start and just cycles in the loading icon of the first reboot and does nothing.

The same unattend.xml works fine on Win11 23h2.

The installation procedure: The machine first boots into a linux image, prepartitions the drive, copies files onto the disk (WinPE), patches the unattend.xml and then reboots into the WinPE.

I discovered it must have to do something with the

XML:

<ModifyPartitions>

section in my unattend.xml. When I just comment it out or remove it, the installation runs fine. But this isn't a solution as this works good on a single disk and system but will most likely fail on a multidisk system.

This is what the section looks like

XML:

<ModifyPartitions>
<ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">          
<Format>NTFS</Format>          
<Label>WINDOWS</Label>          
<Letter>C</Letter>          
<Order>1</Order>          
<PartitionID>3</PartitionID>  
</ModifyPartition>      
<ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">                      
<Label>WINPE</Label>
<Letter>X</Letter>
<Order>2</Order>
<PartitionID>4</PartitionID>
</ModifyPartition>
</ModifyPartitions>

As we already have a proper partitioning done in the linux bootimage the unattend.xml doesn't need a CreatePartition section.

Yesterday I found out that when I dont include the following section the installation works fine. However I need the WinPE partition within the OOBE sections as it contains a script that is executed within OOBE, given the drive letter.
Any suggestion what to change to make the installation work with this section? Adding a Format tag didn't solve it.

XML:

<ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">                      
<Label>WINPE</Label>
<Letter>X</Letter>
<Order>2</Order>
<PartitionID>4</PartitionID>
</ModifyPartition>

Regards
raddirad

garlin · Sep 19, 2024

24H2 Setup is definitely more strict about unattended files, in comparison to previous Windows versions.

raddirad said:

XML:

<ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">                  
<Label>WINPE</Label>
<Letter>X</Letter>
<Order>2</Order>
<PartitionID>4</PartitionID>
</ModifyPartition>

You're missing the <Format>NTFS</Format> tag.

I don't understand your deployment scheme. Normally boot.wim is loaded by a bootloader, and extracts itself into RAM drive X:
What is this persistent "WINPE" volume that needs to be around for the OOBE stage? Are you extracting boot.wim to a local partition, and rebooting from Linux straight into it? You're leaving out key details on how your Windows Setup is supposed to work.

raddirad · Sep 19, 2024

Deployment scheme is the following:
boot linux bootimage
partition drive
copy winpe to winpe partition
patch unattend.xml
reboot to winpe
run setup.exe with patched unattend.xml
run postinstallation commands in OOBE

The format tag is not the issue. I found out it is the drive letter.
Changing it to anything, except X gets me into a running system.

Is there any documentation about this?

FirasKing Air · Sep 19, 2024

Post in thread '24H2 - Very large hanging/system lag when opening programs on modern PC.' 24H2 - Very large hanging/system lag when opening programs on modern PC.

garlin · Sep 19, 2024

WinPE creates a RAM disk as X:, so it's a reserved drive letter while it's running. I don't know if MS explicitly explains this, but it's always been "known" in the Windows Setup community.

FirasKing Air · Sep 19, 2024

Microsoft quietly reveals when Windows 11 24H2 will roll out

Microsoft quietly reveals when Windows 11 24H2 will roll out

We're not even sure Microsoft realized what it did.

www.xda-developers.com

garlin · Sep 19, 2024

Why are you posting these off-topic threads on an Unattended install question?

FirasKing Air · Sep 19, 2024

garlin said:
Why are you posting these off-topic threads on an Unattended install question?

I get them through email and read them and like to share
:)

garlin · Sep 19, 2024

You can post your own threads. It's not polite to camp on someone else's problem which hasn't been resolved.

FirasKing Air · Sep 19, 2024

garlin said:
You can post your own threads. It's not polite to camp on someone else's problem which hasn't been resolved.

Ok I was thinking if OP reads it
It might help him out
I was thinking like this

raddirad · Sep 25, 2024

So my issue is resolved.

It seems that a partition cannot have the same drive letter as the WinPE ramdisk, as it was in my case. Strangely this only appeared with 24h2, before it worked perfectly fine with older versions of Windows.
Setting the letter to anything other than "X" solved the issue.

hsehestedt · Sep 25, 2024

raddirad said:
So my issue is resolved.

It seems that a partition cannot have the same drive letter as the WinPE ramdisk, as it was in my case. Strangely this only appeared with 24h2, before it worked perfectly fine with older versions of Windows.
Setting the letter to anything other than "X" solved the issue.

You may have been lucky to get away with it prior to 24H2, but it is definitely not "best practice". BTW, an observation made by several persons working with unattended setup is that 24H2 seems to be much stricter in enforcing adherence to the rules.

I had some minor issues in my answer files that I had to correct to make them work properly with 24H2. They worked flawlessly in 23H2, but not in 24H2. So, I guess that this is a learning experience for all of us.

krzysiek · Sep 25, 2024

is there an up-to-date version of windows 11 24h2?

hsehestedt · Sep 25, 2024

krzysiek said:
is there an up-to-date version of windows 11 24h2?

The most recent update in the Release Preview line is 26100.1876.

You may already be aware of this, if so, apologies for the repetition, but this gets a little confusing as well.

While the ARM version of 24H2 is technically already released on new ARM devices, the AMD / Intel builds are still considered Release Preview although we expect the final release to be made very soon now. It may be as soon as two Tuesdays from now (Patch Tuesday, Oct 8) but there has been no confirmation of that as yet.

Mamukata · Sep 25, 2024

I try the new OPK for 24H2 nothing change.. boot.wim continue to be bugged.
The new wizard have the same problem... (windows.old folder, don't copy Recovery folder..)

garlin · Sep 25, 2024

It's not a bug, it's a design change.
W11 24h2 and old installation setup

setup.exe is calling SetupPrep.exe, instead of directly running by itself.
This is the same workflow as in-place upgrades, which is why SetupPrep makes an empty Windows.old folder. When you do in-place upgrades, you don't copy Recovery because one already exists.

Mamukata · Sep 26, 2024

garlin said:
It's not a bug, it's a design change.
W11 24h2 and old installation setup

setup.exe is calling SetupPrep.exe, instead of directly running by itself.
This is the same workflow as in-place upgrades, which is why SetupPrep makes an empty Windows.old folder. When you do in-place upgrades, you don't copy Recovery because one already exists.

Sorry garlin but I'm not agree with you...

Why in a new installation the wizard (new one) would create a folder called Windows.old, when there was never anything "old"??
Also if during the first installation you switch to the old wizard this folder is not created.
All this obviously talking about a first installation on an empty storage.

tistou77 · Sep 26, 2024

Mamukata said:
Why in a new installation the wizard (new one) would create a folder called Windows.old, when there was never anything "old"??

The "new" setup from boot, it acts like an upgrade but only "keep nothing" is available
This is a "feature" (bug?) of the new setup...

Like many other things (need to keep more files/folders in the installation directory, etc... if we don't want to have the error of a missing driver or something else) compared to the old setup

That's why i replaced it with the old setup

Mamukata · Sep 26, 2024

tistou77 said:
The "new" setup from boot, it acts like an upgrade but only "keep nothing" is available
This is a "feature" (bug?) of the new setup...

Like many other things (need to keep more files/folders in the installation directory, etc... if we don't want to have the error of a missing driver or something else) compared to the old setup

That's why i replaced it with the old setup

I also force to use the old setup, with new boot.wim, and all back to work!

tistou77 · Sep 26, 2024

Yes, and I've been using the same Unattend since W10 and never had any problems

Solved Windows 11 24h2 Unattend Installation Problems

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