MSIs, if put together well, easily install silently from the command line.
msiexec /qn /i msi-name.msi
Edit (now that I have more time):
All the tooling to make Windows command-line manageable is there "out of the box".
In a former "life" I staged a Windows Server 2008 R2 install that was remotely manageable with SSH (using a third-party SSH server) "out of the box". Similar to a "kickstart" w/ the Anaconda installer, you're talking about chaining scripts to run after the installation to enable desired functionality. It wasn't much different than automating a Linux install.
If you enable the serial console you can do some nice command-line management of Windows VMs through your hypervisor's virtual serial port functionality too. I enjoy having the serial console open because I've been able to diagnose "hung" Windows machines (that is, not responding to GUI logon attempts) thru the console. It's very handy.
msiexec /qn /i msi-name.msi
Edit (now that I have more time):
All the tooling to make Windows command-line manageable is there "out of the box".
In a former "life" I staged a Windows Server 2008 R2 install that was remotely manageable with SSH (using a third-party SSH server) "out of the box". Similar to a "kickstart" w/ the Anaconda installer, you're talking about chaining scripts to run after the installation to enable desired functionality. It wasn't much different than automating a Linux install.
If you enable the serial console you can do some nice command-line management of Windows VMs through your hypervisor's virtual serial port functionality too. I enjoy having the serial console open because I've been able to diagnose "hung" Windows machines (that is, not responding to GUI logon attempts) thru the console. It's very handy.