Base images in a VM

[cuester]

Ok so this may be a bit of a far out thought but here goes.

 

I'm looking to make my base images in a vm on an esxi box as then if I make changes that break the image I can roll back step by step with snapshots. I'm planning on sysprepping the image and then pulling it down onto the physical computers in the school. The problem I foresee is that images made on a sata drive machine work on ide but not vice versa and images made on an amd processor work with intel but not vice versa. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a way to make the VM think it's running on a sata drive and with an AMD processor? Any ideas/suggestions/ or think I'm just crazy.

[sted]

if its windows 7 sysprep will remove all the drivers anyway (unless you tell it not to) then mdt (assuming youre using that) will add back the ones it detects as needed and are in its database

[cuester]

The kicker is some images are xp and some are 7. We're currently not using MDT as we're running a netware 6.5 environment. Soon to be OES

[sted]

windows xp you will hit issues then as sysprep dosent remove drivers and some combinations just wont work if you go from say intel to amd or various sata/ide controllers with different drivers it will just fail in all probability.

 

win7 you should be ok as above it strips out drivers anyway

[SYNACK]

You can use MDT even without a Windows server, just install it on a workstation to build your deployment share and then copy that deployment share to a smb/cifs/windows compatible share on your server, you can then use the generated boot cds or usb keys to drag it down over the network or even make custom install dvd/usb media. As to VMS for images, it is the only sane with later versions of windows and I'd start using it now if your not. MDT has wizards etc along with a bunch of nice features so I'd look into that too, it did even used to manage xp installs but I'm not sure how far that support goes.

[cuester]

Intriguing. I thought it was only for windows servers. I'll look into that. Thanks.

[Duke5A]

Windows XP works just fine using a single base image across different machine types. It's a pain in the neck though sometimes! In a nutshell, create your VM with two processors and use this line in your sysprep inf for the HAL type:

 

UpdateUPHAL="ACPIAPIC_UP,%windir%\inf\hal.inf"

 

Next up is driver juggling for HDD controller support. This is a snippet of my mass storage config that covered a wide range of Intel SATA controllers, a few AMD, and the legacy IDE stuff. I would recommend hunting down the same driver versions I used in this list.

 

[sysprepMassStorage]
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2653&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\7.6.1.1002\iaahci.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_5029&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\7.6.1.1002\iaahci.inf
;
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2681&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C1&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C5&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2821&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2829&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2922&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2929&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3A02&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3A22&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B29&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B2F&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B22&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C02&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C03&CC_0106=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaAHCI.inf
;
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2682&CC_0104=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaStor.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C3&CC_0104=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaStor.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C6&CC_0104=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaStor.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&CC_0104=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaStor.inf
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_282A&CC_0104=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\Intel\10.1.0.1008\iaStor.inf
;
;AMD SATA Support
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0267&CC_0104=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\nVidia\nvraid.inf
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0266&CC_0104=%systemdrive%\Drivers\Common\SATA\nVidia\nvraid.inf
;
; Generic drivers
pci\ven_8086&dev_2651&cc_0101=%systemdrive%\windows\inf\mshdc.inf
pci\ven_8086&dev_2652&cc_0101=%systemdrive%\windows\inf\mshdc.inf
pci\ven_8086&dev_2653&cc_0101=%systemdrive%\windows\inf\mshdc.inf
pci\ven_8086&dev_266f=%systemdrive%\windows\inf\mshdc.inf
pci\cc_0101=%systemdrive%\windows\inf\mshdc.inf
primary_ide_channel=%systemdrive%\windows\inf\mshdc.inf
secondary_ide_channel=%systemdrive%\windows\inf\mshdc.inf

 

The last hurdle to complete is getting the image to work with both AMD and Intel CPUs. It's no problem really. In the VM disable IntelPPM by doing this at the command line:

 

sc config intelppm start= disabled

 

Next create a batch file with this in it to re-enable IntelPPM once the machine is imaged if an Intel CPU is detected:

 

wmic cpu get Manufacturer | findstr /i intel
if "%errorlevel%" == "0" (sc config intelppm start= system)

 

Run this batch via sysprep as a runonce command in the sysprep inf.

 

That should do it! The only pitfall is this image will not work on the older Pentium M chipsets found in D600 era Dell Latitudes. D610 and above will work just fine.

 

And as far as Windows 7 is concerned you don't have to do any of this crap; it just works!

[glennda]

just don't install VMtools on the image as that will cause an issue, you may however see your base image not perform that well without them.

[Duke5A]

just don't install VMtools on the image as that will cause an issue, you may however see your base image not perform that well without them.

 

I agree, but you can load device drivers by hand without actually installing the tools. Start the tools install and you can grab the mouse and display drivers out of the temp folder.

[SYNACK]

I agree, but you can load device drivers by hand without actually installing the tools. Start the tools install and you can grab the mouse and display drivers out of the temp folder.

 

Never install any Intel drivers into an image though, they are like aids, you just can't get rid of them once they are there and compromise everything if you don't specifically need them.

[Duke5A]

Never install any Intel drivers into an image though, they are like aids, you just can't get rid of them once they are there and compromise everything if you don't specifically need them.

 

I was referring to VM drivers bundled in with VMWare Tools. Working in a VM without the mouse and display drivers loaded is a complete pain. Never had any issues otherwise in Windows 7 x32/x64 and Windows XP images doing it this way. I totally agree though, no other drivers touch the base image. All of that is loaded by the WDS box after imaging.

[SYNACK]

I was referring to VM drivers bundled in with VMWare Tools. Working in a VM without the mouse and display drivers loaded is a complete pain. Never had any issues otherwise in Windows 7 x32/x64 and Windows XP images doing it this way. I totally agree though, no other drivers touch the base image. All of that is loaded by the WDS box after imaging.

 

I used to do the same with old schools Hyper-v till 7 integrated all the drivers. What I used to do was use basic inputs just to get rdp running then even without any extensions I could 'remote' in and do everything required without installing any extra drivers or suffering performance slowdowns while doing it.