Installing Windows was: speakup is nice

[John G. Heim]

To install Windows, I use an open source system which is documented here:
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

Somewhere on that site are instructions for remastering the boot CD. All you 
have to do is add speakup to the kernel on the boot CD.

The result can be very slick. You can configure it to ask you all the usual 
Windows installation questions or to ask none of them. I just used this 
system to install Windows on a virtual machine under vmware server2.0.  It 
was very slick. I configured the virtual machine, popped the CD into the 
physical drive on the PC, booted the vm and an hour later I came back to a 
running Windows vm.

The main drawback is that you have to have a network for the thing to work 
at all. What it does is boot linux, runs a dos emulator, and then does a 
network install of Windows. So you must actually copy the Windows 
installation CD to your hard disk on your server. I already had the network 
infrastructure so I was able to set the whole thing up in 2 evenings.

Oh, one more major drawback... Be prepared for a lot of work if you 
regularly install Windows on brand new hardware. If you have somewhat older 
hardware, it will probably work out of the box. But ythe linux kernel on the 
boot CD has to support whatever hardware you have so if you have hardware 
that's too new for whatever kernerl is on your CD, you have to remaster it.

Oh, shoot! One more major drawback. It doesn't work with Vista. Only Windows 
XP. I'd presume though that you could install XP, install speech, and then 
upgrade to Vista. That used to work when upgrading from 95 or ME to XP.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler at tysdomain.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: speakup is nice


> you should make an advertizement with music. :)
> I'd be interested to know how you got windows to install with speakup, 
> that'd be really cool.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Tyler Littlefield
> http://tysdomain.com
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 9:40 AM
> Subject: speakup is nice
>
>
>>I think it's not said often enough. Speakup is really, really nice. Lets 
>>face it, when the chips are down, you always fall back on speakup don't 
>>you? I know I do. The accessible debian install,er, talking grml CD, plus 
>>several a talking Windows installer I built myself. They all depend on 
>>speakup. Speakup is like that old PC you have that always works even when 
>>that new flashiy one is on the fritz again.You know what I mean? You've 
>>got your flashy new laptop or whatever but in an emergency, don't you want 
>>your old one running speakup? Say your network is down and you need to 
>>make a serial port connection. What do you want? I want speakup. When a 
>>machine won't boot, you put in your grml CD with speakup don't you? If I'm 
>>in a panic, I always just want something with speakup.
>>
>> --
>> John G. Heim
>> jheim at math.wisc.edu 3-4189
>> http://www.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>> __________ NOD32 3760 (20090112) Information __________
>>
>> This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
>> http://www.eset.com
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>