[Unattended] assign xp key to machine via mac address??

[Andrew Harber]

hi everyone

Im not sure if this is the right place to ask so please don't attack me if its not.
At present we use answer files to do unattended set up's. The problem we've always had is a large portion of our computers have separate licenses so we add these in on the unattended set up, when it flags up we haven't entered it in the answer file. this can sometimes be a room of 30 plus computers.I was told once on a course you could created a database congaing mac address and then link a machine name and product key to it. so when the machine syspreped it would scan the database (probably in the route of the computer)match the mac and assign the key and name...

so my big question is how if possible?
or is there another method.
just to add we clone machines and use ghost.

look forward to your suggestions

[Sebastian Mohr]

Post by Andrew Harber
Im not sure if this is the right place to ask so please don't attack me if its not.
At present we use answer files to do unattended set up's. The problem
we've always had is a large portion of our computers have separate
licenses so we add these in on the unattended set up, when it flags up
we haven't entered it in the answer file. this can sometimes be a room
of 30 plus computers.I was told once on a course you could created a
database congaing mac address and then link a machine name and product
key to it. so when the machine syspreped it would scan the database
(probably in the route of the computer)match the mac and assign the
key and name...
so my big question is how if possible?
or is there another method.
just to add we clone machines and use ghost.

First, only continue reading if you are using Windows XP.

Second, forget about ghost when you want to use unattended. See
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/index.php section "What about disk
imaging?".

After downloading the archive, take a look at the file
"install/site/sample-config.pl" in combination with
"install/site/unattended.csv". When you replace config.pl with
sample-config.pl, you can use the values in the csv-file to
mass-configure your computers. You can also modify the script to work
with a MySQL or a PostgreSQL database by uncommenting the respective two
lines (and commenting the two about the csv-config).

Also look at http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/unattended/wiki/Scripts
and especially at the SetComputerNameXXX-scripts there, they might prove
useful.

Personally, I combine unattended with nlite to integrate all drivers,
service packs and hotfixes and also remove unnecessary components.


Sebastian Mohr