Why does enabling the "Unattended" section remove the option to Repair Windows during setup process?

Messages
125
Reaction score
18
I've been wanting to ask this for a while, even just toggling Unattended section to "Enabled" without any further modification, makes the option disappear during Windows Setup:

1.png


any way to apply modifications in unattended section while preserving ability to repair windows ?
 
The same behavior happens to a clean ISO, so it's not NTLite-specific.

The shortest working file is:
Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
        <settings pass="windowsPE">
                <component name="Microsoft-Windows-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">
                        <UserData>
                                <ProductKey>
                                        <Key></Key>
                                </ProductKey>
                        </UserData>
                </component>
        </settings>
</unattend>

Windows 11 x64-2026-09-13-20-52-13.png
 
OK. I found a loophole.

1. You cannot have an unattended file that's found in the normal places.

2. You can have a \sources\$OEM$\$$\Panther\unattend.xml (just like Rufus). The big catch is this unattended file only takes effect in the specialize and later passes, and cannot be used for WinPE. But if that's not a problem, then you can keep "Repair My PC" as an option.

If you had to script something for WinPE, one workaround is editing startnet.cmd, and running your own commands or a script from it before calling Setup.exe.
 
You can have a \sources\$OEM$\$$\Panther\unattend.xml (just like Rufus). The big catch is this unattended file only takes effect in the specialize and later passes, and cannot be used for WinPE. But if that's not a problem, then you can keep "Repair My PC" as an option.
thanks for the tip
 
Back
Top