Using images on flash drive and renaming in CC4 to speed up deployment? Possible?

[Duranis]

Just wondering if anyone has tried this (and there is probably many reason why it wont work but...)

 

I have a bunch of new laptops that I need to set up on a CC4 network and on the test system I tried yesterday it took close to 6 hours to complete.

 

I was wondering if I set up one laptop and then took an image of it onto a flash drive could I then use this image on the other laptops, rename them locally and then rename them in CC4? Not sure it is going to be that simple but would be nice if there was a quicker way to do this.

[truebluesteve]

Just wondering if anyone has tried this (and there is probably many reason why it wont work but...)

 

I have a bunch of new laptops that I need to set up on a CC4 network and on the test system I tried yesterday it took close to 6 hours to complete.

 

I was wondering if I set up one laptop and then took an image of it onto a flash drive could I then use this image on the other laptops, rename them locally and then rename them in CC4? Not sure it is going to be that simple but would be nice if there was a quicker way to do this.

 

No you can't I'm afraid. They need to be added to the CC4 database as well as AD and this is done during the build process. It would seem that quite a bit of the build time is taken up by Windows updates at the end and apparently they are going to give you the option to skip this. The updates can then be downloaded using BITS and the machine can be used at the same time

[davipton]

It would seem that quite a bit of the build time is taken up by Windows updates at the end and apparently they are going to give you the option to skip this.

 

You can already stop the updates from applying to the build process by removing the tick box (think its a tick box) on the build template(s) you are using. This is done in the RMMC before you build the devices and cannot be done during the build process.

 

This saves me days if not a week or so when we rebuild our 1600+ cc4 workstations in the summer!

 

David

[Duranis]

Thought that might be the case but was hoping I was wrong

 

Really good tip on removing the windows updates from the build process though. Thank you both very much.

[Max_Power]

6 Hours to complete a build process sounds like an incredibly long time? Ours take around 2 hours tops with some pretty big pieces of software installed too. What else is included in your build template?

[truebluesteve]

You can already stop the updates from applying to the build process by removing the tick box (think its a tick box) on the build template(s) you are using. This is done in the RMMC before you build the devices and cannot be done during the build process.

 

This saves me days if not a week or so when we rebuild our 1600+ cc4 workstations in the summer!

 

David

 

You are of course quite right - I spoke to the CC4 product manager a while back and he mentioned something about Windows Updates and the build process, but it obviously wasn't that!

[Danp]

6 Hours to complete a build process sounds like an incredibly long time? Ours take around 2 hours tops with some pretty big pieces of software installed too. What else is included in your build template?

 

Ours average around the 3 hour mark with windows updates, but that is with SSDs

[davipton]

@Duranis have you seen RM have released updated wim images that in a bunch of windows updates to make builds faster.

[Duranis]

@Duranis have you seen RM have released updated wim images that in a bunch of windows updates to make builds faster.

 

Thanks for the heads up, will certainly be handy for the future.