Imaging the lazy way... changing HAL?

[gshaw]

Been reading around this and there seems to be many ways to get around this one...

 

Basically for our admin PCs and random laptops I'd like to have one simple, basic image to keep them up to date nice n easy... compared to the teaching rooms it's more of a pain for admin as there's a fair few different types of hardware floating around in odd numbers.

 

The oldest is an Athlon 3000+ system and newest are Stone Core2Duo boxes.

 

So basically here's what I picked up...

 

- I can put drivers in folders in C: and edit the registry so it auto looks for them, so should cover the driver issue with any luck.

 

- mass storage drivers... no prob as I put all of em on IDE emulation anyway

 

- HAL type... here's where I'm a bit unsure... if I set it as ACPI Uniprocessor on the image and make no further adjustments will it change to ACPI Multiprocessor for dual core PCs? I'm using SMS 2003 that automates its own sysprep so would be best if I don't need to change anything there.

 

Also read it's best to built either on VMWare or AMD platform as AMD original image > Intel works better than the other way around because of a ppmm service or something along those lines.

 

Any other suggestions \ tips?

[Michael]

Imaging Windows 2000/XP/2003 the HAL is a real problem, but I believe it's much improved with Windows Vista/7. You can create single images much more easily.

 

There are imaging applications that claim to get around the HAL problem, but I still create seperate images. It's the only way I can be sure the images will definitely work and not start failing.

[DrPerceptron]

I last created a universal image a while ago, haven't done it since, but there's a lot of info out on the net about it and some good guides on what you need to do - I think there's a comprehensive one somewhere written by a guy or two at Altiris on it (not using ADS either!)

 

jimtsay - MySysprep is a bit of software I definately remember using for HAL purposes.

[gshaw]

Hmmm does look like it's a case of kludge it until 7 comes out as I suspected... might be a bit too much bodgery to be worthwhile I guess

[SYNACK]

Hmmm does look like it's a case of kludge it until 7 comes out as I suspected... might be a bit too much bodgery to be worthwhile I guess

 

Vista also handles differnt HAL types fine but if you sill have Vista hate going on then yes you will need to wait until 7 for this feature.

[dtakias]

Yeah, you'll probably be able to make a universal image that will work on a few machines, but it's very difficult, almost impossible to make it work under every single chipset/board manufacturer.

 

I still believe making seperate images is the way forward...maybe we windows 7 deploy tools will provide this functionality???

[jsnetman]

I have got all of our hardware covered by one image using a combination of driverpacks sysprep and a line in sysprep which can be edited if you are using WDS. The line entry is:

 

UpdateUPHal=ACPIAPIC_UP, %windir%\inf\hal.inf

 

This example entry would force the HAL from a ACPI Multiprocessor image to an ACPI Uniprocessor. It all depends what type your base image is.

 

Other examples can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283

Edited June 5, 2009 by jsnetman

[gshaw]

Vista also handles differnt HAL types fine but if you sill have Vista hate going on then yes you will need to wait until 7 for this feature.

 

Yup it's wait for 7 tactic here... no way I'd put Vista anywhere near our network even after the service packs

[plexer]

Same here I have an XP SP3 disc with driver packs installed but the gfx driver it picks for some of our laptops just lead to scrambled display.

 

Ben

[bossman]

I think you should be looking at Acronis imaging software with universal restore anywhere so that you can restore an image from one piece of kit to another and create your HAL to suite all this can be automated and the images can be updated piece meal automatically.

 

Expensive and good but then you might want to work within your own system without incurring costs except your time.

 

Corporate solution I know but it works for them so should be equally as good for you.

[DMcCoy]

You can use the uniprocessor ACPI HAL when building, it will change after an additional reboot to multiprocessor ACPI. At least mine does. As long as your machines aren't ancient and using standard.

 

Going from multi to uni will probably need the sysprep entry update as above.

 

I still have one image for 7 different machine types here. The mass storage section in sysprep is quite large now though.