Silence is Golden during Setup

Thanks to @gwblok for pointing me to this twitter thread about Windows OOBE Setup.

Or rather, disable it first, and then enable it after OOBE is completed (in the task sequence). pic.twitter.com/ZCFTjr0lOs

— Johan Arwidmark (@jarwidmark) December 12, 2017

When Unattended is not Silent

During Windows 10 OOBE, the Windows Welcome process uses the Cortana voice engine to speak during Windows Setup.

Now we can go look for any updates

Shut up!

Yes, I’m one of those guys who sets my Sound Profile to “silent”, Silence is Golden!

And if I’m going to be running several Windows Deployments in my lab (read my home office), then I would prefer the machine to be silent. Reminds me of the XP/Vista days when we had boot up sounds. How rude.

So how to disable… Well the answer doesn’t appear to be that straight forwards.

SkipMachineOOBE

At first I suggested SkipMachineOOBE, and works on my test machine! Yea!

Then I got a reminder that SkipMachineOOBE is deprecated according to documentation.

DisableVoice

Thanks to @Jarwidmark for pointing me in the thread above to:

reg.exe add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE /v DisableVoice /t REG_DWORD /d 1

However, Microsoft Documentation also states that you should only use this for testing, and that Cortana Voice should be-enabled for users. OK… Fine, we’ll delete the key after setup is complete.

So where to place all this stuff?

Specialize

Several people suggested modifying the local registry within the imaging process, but I would prefer to avoid that, instead trying to see if we can perform the action during Setup using our unattend.xml file.

The command to disable would need to be *before* “OOBE”, sounds like the perfect job for the “Specialize” process.

Some quick testing, verified, and we are ready to go.

Automating OOBE

So, given the guidance from Microsoft on how to automate Windows 10:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/settings-for-automating-oobe

Here are my changes:

• We disable Cortana during the Specialize Pass before OOBE.
• Then during OOBE, we clear the Cortana setting, and continue.

	<!– https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/settings-for-automating-oobe –>
	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
	<settings pass="specialize">
	<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
	<ComputerName>*</ComputerName>
	</component>
	<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
	<RunSynchronous>
	<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
	<Description>Silence is Golden – Silence Cortana during Setup</Description>
	<Order>1</Order>
	<Path>reg.exe add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE /v DisableVoice /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
	</RunSynchronousCommand>
	</RunSynchronous>
	</component>
	</settings>
	<settings pass="oobeSystem">
	<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
	<OOBE>
	<ProtectYourPC>1</ProtectYourPC>
	<HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
	<HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>true</HideWirelessSetupInOOBE>
	<HideLocalAccountScreen>true</HideLocalAccountScreen>
	<HideOnlineAccountScreens>true</HideOnlineAccountScreens>
	<HideOEMRegistrationScreen>true</HideOEMRegistrationScreen>
	</OOBE>
	<UserAccounts>
	<AdministratorPassword>
	<Value>UABAAHMAcwB3ADAAcgBkAEEAZABtAGkAbgBpAHMAdAByAGEAdABvAHIAUABhAHMAcwB3AG8AcgBkAA==</Value>
	<PlainText>false</PlainText>
	</AdministratorPassword>
	</UserAccounts>
	<FirstLogonCommands>
	<SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
	<Description>ReEnable Cortana After Setup</Description>
	<Order>1</Order>
	<CommandLine>reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE /v DisableVoice</CommandLine>
	<RequiresUserInput>false</RequiresUserInput>
	</SynchronousCommand>
	</FirstLogonCommands>
	</component>
	<component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
	<InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
	<SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
	<UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
	<UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
	</component>
	</settings>
	</unattend>

view raw

Unattend.xml

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