Introducing BSETUP.INF

The windows installation by itself can be a big time waster. The windows installation procedure asks you lots of questions and needs your attendance all over the time.

However, there has always existed a way to automate this. Readers of the "Windows Resource Kit" help file may already know about it: the bsetup.inf approach.

However, setting up such a file can be quite complicated. Therefore, Microsoft even published a helper application. And even when you use this tool your installation is not as automated as it can be. Therefore I used the output of this program and hand-modified it to suit my need.

Design decisions

Before you do such a thing you must answer yourself some questions, e.g. the OS version you want (Windows 95 vs. Windows 98), the program set you want to install and the grade of automatism.

In the environment for which I originally made this software, the answers have been:

• OS: Windows 95 OSR 2.1 --- Windows 98 was too instable. Also, it was considerably bigger, so on the same hardware it was slower due to memory consumption
• Program set: a very small program set. Basically not gimmicks. The PCs for which it was designed were in an office environment. All possible sources of influence was to be eliminated. Not even screen savers are to be installed (modern VGA monitors don't need screen savers anyway)
• Maximum automation. With 30 PCs to manage any little automatism would count 30 times.

How it works

1. A batch file (install.bat) first deletes any remnants of a previous windows installation.
2. Then a small helper program takes the bsetup.txt file and changes every occurrence of 99 into a supplied number. This is used to automatically set the computer name (e.g. OMD-40) and the IP number (e.g. 192.168.1.40).
3. The the setup.exe of Windows 95 is called with several command line parameters. Those parameters disable certain annoying dialogues and tell the setup program to use the freshly created bsetup.inf file for it's input.
4. Inside the bsetup.inf we define the express install, the network card, networking parameters (e.g. TCP/IP, no NETBEUI, no Novell), the program set to be installed.
5. Finally, we also define some preliminary Registry tweaks. One disables the "Welcome to Windows" message after the 2nd reboot.
6. Another install script hack is the installation of TweakUI (into the not-yet-running Windows!). TweakUI is used to automate the Windows login on the first two reboots of Windows.
7. Finally, we define in bsetup2.inf via a Registry hack to automatically run F:\INSTALL\WINMASON.EXE in the autostart. That means that WinMason runs already from the network. No need to put it on the local hard disk. In essence this allows you a centralized management.
8. Windows installs and reboots various times. Finally it's up and running, including the network. Now you log in into the setup. And now is the time for WinMason to take over the installation.