Help, confused by windows 7

[szachara]

Hey guys, I have come here for help as I am bit lost as to what I am trying to do in our environment. Maybe if I explain what I do with Xp in our environment, you guys could offer a way to get what i need from Windows 7.

 

For the past few years we have been deploying XP in this fashion.

 

1. build a laptop with XP from scratch. install drivers, software, etc. tweak local admin and remove extra accounts after testing.

 

2. use the sysprep utility to seal my image, generating a new SID, and running a mini-setup on boot.

a. the mini-setup: installs plug and play devices to navigate through mini-setup, prompts for a computer name, has the product key already added, and joins our organizations domain based with an account we created just for such purposes.

 

3. using Ghost to capture the image and store it on a network share.

 

 

We do not use any of Microsofts deployment tools so I am not really familiar with it.

 

I am wondering how I can acheive these same objectives in my answer file with Windows 7. I have heard rumors that Ghost does not work with Windows 7. Is there another utlity I should use instead of Ghost.

 

Thanks for any help you guys can give.

 

STeve

[Gatt]

We use WDS and MDT to great effect for Windows 7

 

with Win7 sysprep there are 2 options: Audit Mode and OOBE

 

OOBE = Out Of Box Experience -> this resets the image so that it can be installed on any PC - by stripping out ALL drivers

 

Audit = If you want to keep the drivers then you need to do this first, the pc reboots and displays the sysprep window again - this time choose OOBE

 

Choose the "Generalize" option to strip SIDs, etc...

 

Use WDS to capture the image

 

You will also need the WAIK to create an unattend xml file too - all pretty easy

[szachara]

Thanks Gatt...

 

The info definitely helps. I have a question about WDS, if you don't mind me asking.

 

 

I'm not sure if WDS would suit my organization well. We are a school district with 14 sites where we have customized images.

 

Typically we would just use a ghost boot flash drive to boot to the ghost client. our ghost cast server is just a laptop we carry to each location. we copy whatever image we need to the laptop and run the session from the site. this works because our sites are all on different vlans and our laptop can pick up an address via dhcp.

 

is there a client that each computer boots to that we are going to image (like WinPE) or is it a network boot situation?

 

i'll read up on, but i was just curious.

 

thanks again

 

stve

[p858snake]

..snip..

1. build a laptop with XP from scratch. install drivers, software, etc. tweak local admin and remove extra accounts after testing.

 

2. use the sysprep utility to seal my image, generating a new SID, and running a mini-setup on boot.

a. the mini-setup: installs plug and play devices to navigate through mini-setup, prompts for a computer name, has the product key already added, and joins our organizations domain based with an account we created just for such purposes.

 

3. using Ghost to capture the image and store it on a network share.

..snip..

Why are you fulling rebooting then ghosting? that basically makes the sysprep useless....

 

Once you sysprep -> insert your ghost media (if your using a cd) -> then shutdown -> Plug in/insert your ghost media (if not using cd/ eg: usb) -> Boot into your ghost environment (CD/USB/PXE/Choose your poison) -> capture your image.

 

And yes, you can do Seven/Vista this way.

[szachara]

you are right. i typed out my process wrong. i do it the same way you do.

 

so you are saying i can use ghost with win 7? that is good to know.

 

 

thnks

[szachara]

so if i am reading this right, I can almost do what I do with XP with 7 in that:

 

i can just install the software and drivers that I want and then use sysprep to reseal the setup.

 

i just need to create the answer file for the mini-setup process. Do i need to call it unattend.xml or sysprep.xml, or does it matter?

 

do i need to boot windows into audit mode if i am going to just install and reseal? or can i just install as i normally would and just use sysprep. i will be capturing the image using ghost.

 

----------------------------------------------

also just wondering how people handling imaging at multiple sites. we typically build our images in our office and then go on site to deploy them. we don't have anything setup through our servers for package deploying or image deploying. that is something i would like to investigate and see if we can make work for us if it is feasable.

 

 

thanks again for the help. this forum has been a huge help.

[srochford]

Ghost works fine with Windows 7.

 

You don't have to worry about the complexities of unattend.xml until you're ready - just run sysprep (and it's on the machine - c:\windows\system32\sysprep) and choose OOBE, generalise and shutdown.

 

Once it's shutdown you make your ghost image and life is good :-)

[jsnetman]

If you have 14 sites mastering WDS and MDT or WAIK will definately be the way to go . The whole point of these tools is that you can deploy one image to any site by tweaking the imageunattend.xml answer file and specifying the drivers and software needed for each site. I suppose it could all be done from a laptop as well as long as your not going to rebuild a lot of machines at any one time. at the moment you are preparing and sysprepping an image for each site which could all be done from one image.

[Ric_]

There's a video at Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Lite Touch Screencast | Media | TechNet Edge that you may find helpful.