The WAIK has been released by Micorosft. Anyone looking to do network, unattended or WDS (Windows Deployment Services) installations of Windows Vista will need to download this kit.
Unattended installations have changed a lot. The old unattend.txt has gone by the wayside, to be replaced by unattend.xml. Vista installations are componnent based and takes places in a number of phases. This has to be understood and the new XML unattend file can handle it. Vista installations are also "image" based. It’s bit level imaging like ghost, more like file imaging. There’s who new ways to install additional drivers and applications. You’ve also got Windows PE, a replacement for DOS in the pre-installation phase for preparing your machine and downloading an image from the network. This appears to be included in WAIK.
Whatever way you intend to deploy Vista, make sure you download this kit. You will find it’s a tough trawl at first, if it’s anything like the beta release, but it is worth it in the end.