Community Wiki documentation on the boot process

Since detailing the whole process into its finest details requires quite some analysis and research to be applicable to all Windows versions, and to outline the minor details of the setup; please help write this community wiki which can benefit other users in the future which are trying to understand where and why their boot procedure has failed... Thank you!

Copying Windows Files:

Since expanding everything from the installation medium would be tedious, setup first copies everything.

1. Copies boot.wim to C:\$Windows.~BT

2. Copies install.wim to C:\$Windows.~LS

Expanding Windows Files:

Now that we have our files, they can be expanded.

1. Expands install.wim in C:\, for Users, ProgramData, Program Files, Windows, ...

2. Expands boot.wim, containing the executable(s) and configuration to be able to boot.

Installing Features:

Enables and configures the features that need to be enabled, note that these can be customized. Given that the files are already in place, this is most likely making some hard links and changing some registry features to make the features present on the system.

Installing Updates:

Installs any KB updates that have been packed onto the installation medium. This is a common practice such that when you have to do multiple installations, it doesn't have to fetch the updates from the internet every time.

Completing Installation:

1. Detects your drivers, installing any drivers that came with the installation medium. If you need to install to a lot of computers of the same type, packing the drivers is worth it.

2. Cleans up anything temporary the setup has left behind.

3. Makes sure the system can be rebooted.

4. Makes sure the data on the hard drive has been synchronized and is no longer cached.

5. Reboots the system.

First Boot:

Some more configuration, mostly to further customize the OS to your hardware.

Audit Mode (optional):

If the system is set to boot in audit mode; either via unattended configuration, sysprep /audit or by holding Ctrl+Shift+F3 then the installation can be customized prior to making an user, this is useful to provide certain features (called crapware these days) before finalizing the installation. Note that usually this phase is automated, which finishes with a call to sysprep /oobe.

Out of Box Experience:

Finally, you arrive at the Welcome Screen where you can create your user profile.

The first login per user applies some further personal configuration.

Wait... it seems to have resolved itself. My apologies. What I described as an "infinite" progress bar was, in fact, finite. It eventually finished, and now IIS is there.