Encoding Sensitive information in bootstrap.ini

Question

Good afternoon.

I am trying to automate the UserDomain, UserID and UserPassword for our Deployments. I have added the settings to the bootstrap.ini file and it works properly.
The issue is that they are in plain text in the bootstrap.ini.
I came across the following post about encoding the information.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-blog-archive/encoding-sensitive-information-in-customsettings-ini-and/ba-p/706695

Now I understand this is not encrypting but only encoding. I would like to test this but unfortunately the link for vbs scripts is not working and the post is a few years old.

Does anyone have any insight or know of any current posts on this subject or possibly a better way to secure the sensitive information?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi,

Thanks for posting in Microsoft Q&A forum.

1,You can refer to below article to use a script to secure the process.
Joining the Domain with a Script
Note: The non-Microsoft link is just for your reference.

2,You can also try to use the combination of service account for joining domain + specifying service account credentials in MDT database where it's encrypted.

Hope it helps. Thanks for your time.

Best regards,
Simon

---

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

You might also look at this blog post which encodes the password in the .ini file. At run time, it invokes a user exit script to decode.

Encoding sensitive information in CustomSettings.ini and Bootstrap.ini