Answer file storing plain text password

[sarahnade]

I am using Image Manager from the Windows AIK toolkit to create an unattended answer file to image the computers in our lab. I would like to be able to join them to our domain without doing it manually for each computer.

Here's the problem. The component for doing this (called "UnattendedJoin") requires three pieces of information: the domain, username, and password. The username and password we use is the Network Administrator credentials. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem except that there is no option (like there is elsewhere) to encrypt this password. So it gets stored as plain text in an xml answer file. I've also read that this password gets stored on the imaged computer as plain text in the registry! Tell me I'm not crazy for thinking this is a very, very bad idea.

Is there any way around this?

Sarah
-don't panic, I'm mostly harmless-

 

[linney]

Apparently there is no way around your problem other than to do it manually afterward.

Hide Sensitive Data in an Answer File

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722019.aspx