unattend.xml

The Unattended Installation Answer File (unattend.xml) is a configuration file used in Windows that provides answers to various installation and configuration questions in advance to help streamline the installation process and ensure consistency when setting up a standard Windows image for employees in an organization.

It is common for organizations to include the plain text credentials for a local administrator account in unattend.xml to be used to install various tools the organization uses.

If the local administrator credentials are not changed after the fact and the unattend.xml file is not redacted after setup, you can gain access to the account by locating the unattend.xml file on the Windows computer.

The unattend.xml file can be found in a few different places. Here are some common paths to look at:

C:\Windows\Panther\Unattended.xml
C:\Windows\Panther\Unattend.xml
C:\Windows\Panther\Unattend\Unattend.xml
C:\Windows\Panther\Unattend\Unattended.xml

C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\unattend.xml
C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\unattended.xml

C:\unattend.txt
C:\unattend.inf

Alternatively, you can search the C drive for files matching these filenames.

Windows

dir /s *sysprep.inf *sysprep.xml *unattended.xml *unattend.xml *unattend.txt 2>nul