About unattend.tools
Build Windows unattend.xml without studying the schema.
Release: v0.0.46
Why this exists
Windows imaging has been the same hostage situation for fifteen years. You either learn WSIM and tab through its schema browser, copy XML you don't fully understand from a forum post, or rebuild the same scripts on every job.
unattend.tools is the form that ends that cycle. It runs in your browser. It doesn't phone home. The XML it writes is the XML you'd write yourself, if you had time to read the schema PDF cover to cover.
Every field maps to a real entry in Microsoft's unattend schema. Every sysprep workflow — fresh install, capture-ready golden, refresh-over-refresh — is built to match how images actually flow. The live preview shows you the XML before you download it, so there's never a moment of "I hope that's right."
How it works
- Pure browser app — no backend, no telemetry. Your config doesn't leave the tab.
- State persists in
localStorage. The whole form also encodes to a URL, so you can bookmark a config or send a co-worker a link. - Live validation: bad NetBIOS names, invalid product keys, autologon without a password — flagged the moment you type them.
- Paste an existing
unattend.xmlat the top of the builder and the form populates from it. Useful when you're inheriting someone else's script. - A vetted library of first-run command snippets, badged by runtime (PowerShell / cmd / VBS / exe). Each one's risk note is the actual risk, not a generic disclaimer.
- Reference docs are linked from the homepage and from the field tooltips. No search-engine wall in between.
Source & license
MIT-licensed. Source lives in a private repo for now; a public mirror is planned once the API stabilises.
Inspiration & credits
unattend.tools stands on work that came before it. The OOBE-bypass field combinations, the telemetry-suppression sets, and a good chunk of the first-run command library were learned from projects that have been grinding on Windows imaging for years:
- Christoph Hagenbrock's unattend-generator — the canonical browser-based generator. Several of our OOBE and LocalAccount patterns match what Schneegans's generator emits, because it's been the most thoroughly road-tested public reference.
- Chris Titus's WinUtil — the "WinUtil" filter pill in the snippet picker maps to commands
sourced from that project's
autounattend.xmlafter a per-entry audit. Most of the telemetry, debloat, and service-tweak snippets started there. - The wider Windows imaging community — every forum post, every
half-deleted blog explaining what really happens in
specialize. If you've ever published a workingautounattend.xml, some of it is probably echoed in here.
Bugs, missing fields, and bad takes belong to us, not to them.
Both projects are MIT-licensed; their full license notices are in our third-party notices.