OOBE configuration

What it does

The out-of-box experience (OOBE) is the sequence of setup screens Windows shows on first boot. This step writes an answer file that Windows reads during OOBE and auto-answers the machine screens for you — region, keyboard, licence terms, device name, and optionally Wi-Fi — so nobody has to click through them.

Use it for non-Autopilot deployments — clients that aren't Azure AD / Autopilot joined. It's the answer-file equivalent of what Autopilot does from its deployment profile, which is why it cannot be combined with Autopilot registration — you pick one approach to first boot.

Options

Option	What it controls
Region	Date, number and currency format (e.g. English UK, Dutch NL, German DE).
Keyboard layout	The keyboard applied at first boot.
Device name	The computer name. Use %SERIAL% as a placeholder for the hardware serial (e.g. ACME-%SERIAL%). Truncated to 15 characters (Windows' NetBIOS limit).
Wi-Fi SSID	Optional. Set it and the device auto-connects on first boot — handy when there's no ethernet.
Wi-Fi password	The vault secret holding the Wi-Fi key (required if an SSID is set).
Skip the account screen	Optional local admin username to pre-create.
Password for that account	The vault secret for that account.

Two ways to handle the user account

• Default — end user makes their own account. By default this step does not create a user; the person receiving the laptop creates their own account at first boot. Pair it with a Local administrator step (required) for the underlying MSP management account.
• Optional — skip the account screen. Fill in the Skip the account screen username and password and StageReady pre-creates that single local admin, so Windows skips the "Who's going to use this device?" screen entirely. The machine lands on the sign-in screen ready to use — no duplicate second account.

⚠ Plaintext trade-off. When you use the skip-the-account-screen option, the password is written in plaintext into the answer file on the device and stays there until OOBE finishes — then Windows removes it. No auto-logon is configured. If that trade-off isn't acceptable, leave those two fields blank and keep the normal account screen.

Part of the step catalogue.