[sccm 2012] What's the point of Build and Capture?

[Sam_Brown]

Morning Guys,

 

I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable reason for Build and Capture over straight up building from scratch with a Task Sequence and the base "install.wim" but I'm not sure what it is!

 

From my understanding is that purpose of B&C is to create an image that you can use in future deployment Task Sequences anyway!

 

Why use a "golden image" over a straight up Deployment from Scratch?

[plexer]

If all your drivers and applications install well using SCCM or whatever then apart from a possible speed increase to go from bare metal to a finished desktop not a lot really.

 

However if you have an issue with drivers or legacy apps that SCCM doesn't work well with then it may be useful for that.

 

Ben

[sted]

to build a base image with updates to whenever the task is run and any apps you want built into the base image rather then scripted/pushed out at a later date with minimal user intervention. This should mean builds using this new image are updated to time x rather than the sp version of the dvd and have say office in from first deploy

 

(of course all assuming this is basically the same as mdt sysprep and capture task

[Sam_Brown]

Thanks for the replies. I suppose the biggest benefit then is the fact that you can include applications and updates in the GOLDEN IMAGE and save time when deploying in the future.

[Gatt]

After years of dealing with Ghost and RIS/WDS I'm reluctant to use B&C now

 

TS installs do away with the constant need to refresh images when new software is released,etc

The only benefit would be Software Updates - you dont then need to installed 200+ updates after installation - though you do still need to recapture the image periodically to keep it up to date.

 

Though with SCCM 2012 and Offline Servicing this shouldn't be much of an issue now - though I've yet to get it to work!

[free780]

B and c helps when deploying cad or cs5. You can automate it as well.

[jugglerjoe]

I dont use SCCM but MDT has build and capture task sequences. I literally use them or adding .net updates in which is not very often.

 

IF you use WSUS then you can use the DISM tool and powershell to automatically update your images every week or day. This is a simple thing you can schedule and run it when you are not at your pc or or a server when its in low use

[sted]

IF you use WSUS then you can use the DISM tool and powershell to automatically update your images every week or day. This is a simple thing you can schedule and run it when you are not at your pc or or a server when its in low use

 

how i see this occasionaly and have never figured out how to do it

[basicchannel]

Can I just ask a thicko question?

 

I'm just getting to grips with SCCM and haven't had much experience of automated deployment beyond RIS.

 

By B&C do you mean building the image on the machine manually first (including all updates and software) then running a capture task seq from SCCM?

 

Thanks

[jugglerjoe]

ok. Here is my script i use to get this done. it works with most updates and takes a good while to complete.

 

change the $WimFullFilePath variable to the location of your .wim image

$MountDir needs to be a place that you want to mount the offline image

$IndexNum is the edition image you want to use. you can run dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:$WimFullFilePath to work out your correct index number

$PathofMSUFile is your WSUS download location. There should be loads of folders in this location.

 

Here is the powershell script (with server info taken out. Ive had to edit a tad because we have a rogue update which cripples the image)

 

#Path to install.wim file

$WimFullFilePath = ""

#Path for directory to mount the .wim image in

$MountDir = ""

#Index number of the image.. use "dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:$WimFullFilePath" to get the index number

$IndexNum =

#Path of Win7 x64 WSUS location

$PathofMSUFile = ""

 

#Getting all MSU Files

$MSUFiles = Get-ChildItem $PathofMSUFile -Name

 

#Using dsim to mount the WIM Image

dism.exe /mount-wim /wimfile:$WimFullFilePath /mountdir:$MountDir /index:$IndexNum

 

foreach ($Update in $MSUFiles) {

Write-host "$Update"

 

Dism.exe /image:$MountDir /add-package /Packagepath:"$PathofMSUFile\$Update"

}

 

#unmounting the wim and commiting to updates.

Dism.exe /unmount-wim /mountdir:$MountDir /commit

 

Hope that helps ya.

 

as for basicchannel

Build and capture is a fully automated process. You can run things in the task sequence like automated application deployment and automated updates that make the deployment of an image faster. what you are describing is a sysprep and capture

[sted]

Can I just ask a thicko question?

 

I'm just getting to grips with SCCM and haven't had much experience of automated deployment beyond RIS.

 

By B&C do you mean building the image on the machine manually first (including all updates and software) then running a capture task seq from SCCM?

 

Thanks

afaik no you set up a task it fires out an os, runs windows update, runs any scripts you tell it to, probably re runs windows update, syspreps the pc then captures an image without user intervention (though i suspect you can put a pause there so you can do stuff by hand)

[basicchannel]

afaik no you set up a task it fires out an os, runs windows update, runs any scripts you tell it to, probably re runs windows update, syspreps the pc then captures an image without user intervention (though i suspect you can put a pause there so you can do stuff by hand)

 

Ah that clears things up, thanks. Has anyone used the Dell driver CABs for D&C on their Optiplex machines? I'm just looking at a walkthrough here (albeit on SCCM 2007 and a Vista deployment). Looks really interesting but was wondering if anyone does it this way rather than downloading drivers individually?

[sted]

Ah that clears things up, thanks. Has anyone used the Dell driver CABs for D&C on their Optiplex machines? I'm just looking at a walkthrough here (albeit on SCCM 2007 and a Vista deployment). Looks really interesting but was wondering if anyone does it this way rather than downloading drivers individually?

 

assuming its the same as the hp one its just a way of mass downloading drivers shouldnt make any real odds just saves you time

[jugglerjoe]

ive not used those as we only have dell servers and all out dell machines bar 15 Vostro 360's were decommissioned last year and i didnt have controll of our deployment properly then =[

 

All I do for drivers is when ya get a new desktop. Take a full driver backup onto a usb stick. then rebuild with the current drivers from our network. we get 90% of our pcs from 1 supplier who use the mostly the same components and just update them. if it works fine form the network I may update them to newer versions but otherwise ill just import ones that dont work

[gshaw]

Never used Build and Capture on my SCCM server as I like to do additional customisations on the base image before capturing it - Task Sequences as mentioned do all the layering you need for adding applications afterwards so you can have the best of both worlds.