Lars' System Center Blog

Creating an answer file with Image Configuration Editor (ICE)

You can build an image by using Image Configuration Editor. If you chose the advanced path for image development, this process will get you started with building an image. Although it takes more time to build an image by using Image Configuration Editor than by using Image Builder Wizard, this tool is the most flexible and versatile way to define your image requirements, especially when you need the image size to remain small.

Start the “Image configuration Editor”, On the “File” menu, select “New Answer File”

The answer file opens, and in the “Answer File” pane, you see the Windows Embedded Core package is already included in the package

Since we want to use WES7 for digital signage we can use a predefined template (less work J)
Under “Templates” expand the “IBW folder” and right-click the “Digital Signage.xml” and click “Add to Answerfile”

The answer File section will be populated with all the feature packs included in the xml file:

You still need to add all or the preferred the Security updates to the answer file. If you want to add all updates select “Securityupdate” and “right-click”, click “Add to Answer File”.

If you just want to add a specific update, select the update and “right-click”, click “Add to Answer File”.

Now we need to make the file unattended. For this we need to make some changes:

In the “Answer File” pane of Image Configuration Editor, expand the “Product > Operating System > Foundation Core” nodes to display available settings.

Notice that all settings are grayed out. If you want to change setting you need to select the configuration pass in which the settings are configured during setup

The first setting is in pass “4 Specialize”, find the “Productkey” entry and add your key in the “Value” filed

Attention: There are 2 values for “ProductKey” one for 64bit and One For 32bit, complete the one you need

If you are using an evaluation version, in pass “7 OOBE System” you also need to change the “HideEvaluationWarning” value to “1”:

To accept the EULA, in the “1 Windows PE” pass change the “Accepteula” value to “True”

Adapt the regional settings in pass “1 WindowsPE” as in screenshot:

Specify create the disk to install in pass “1 WindowsPE”

On the “Validate” menu, select “Add Required and Optional Packages”

After this action you will have 1 error message:

To resolve this issue, double-click “Dependencies of the source package are not satisfied”

There is no language pack selected….I select the “English (US) Language Pack” and click “Ok”

On the “Validate” menu, select “Add Required” and no more errors J:

On the “File” menu click “save answer file”

I name it Digital signage and save it to the default location.

That’s it we have an answer file for an installation.

There are a lot of other settings that you can set, for more info read the ICE help.

Greetzzzz

Lars Verbist