WSUS and ghosting PC's

[kennysarmy]

Just had an issue with a single PC that I moved from one Container in WSUS to another whereby it would nt appear.

 

The client was picking up the new GPO which told it to point to "Testing" instead of "Machines"....but it was not appearing....

 

Did a spot of reading and found this:

Client Requirements

 

99% of our PC's are imaged using Ghost and as far as I know they are all appearing OK in WSUS - 800 or so....

 

So should I be worried that I am not deleting the "susclientid" keys prior to creating the image?

 

Cheers.

[andy_nic]

I always keep a container away from any gpo's in AD, which has my image computer accounts in, that way it doesn't download any ID's from WSUS or Sophos. also uses SID change after ghost as well.

[Arthur]

So should I be worried that I am not deleting the "susclientid" keys prior to creating the image?

Yes...

 

You might notice that some computers are appearing multiple times in WSUSAdmin - Computers and some of them disappear very often. This is due to duplicate SUS client IDs. Take a look at this script which deletes duplicate SUS client IDs found on a computer. These IDs are often found on computers where the operating system was installed using an image-based setup. (Source)

 

5. Imaged clients with a duplicate client ID will only appear once in the WSUS Admin Console. Each AU client must have a unique id which is created for each individual install. When imaging systems it is recommended always to use SysPrep. The WSUS admin console will only display one client for each unique ID. If you have multiple clients created from one image which are sharing the same ID, only one will appear in the WSUS admin console. All clients will check in and download updates, but only one will appear and display status in the WSUS admin console. In cases where clients are not checking in, and they were created from images without running SysPrep, the following steps will reset the existing duplicative client IDs. (Source)

[sionide]

Yeah, I use SysPrep then take the actual image. It resets all the security IDs and whenever a the image is installed it asks for a machine name and joins to the domain as that, appearing fresh in WSUS usually.

[kernewek-sam]

Yeah, I use SysPrep then take the actual image. It resets all the security IDs and whenever a the image is installed it asks for a machine name and joins to the domain as that, appearing fresh in WSUS usually.

 

We do the same, run Sysprep then image it, for the same reasons.

[IanT]

Sysprep here also.

[Freedom]

Very important to SysPrep and then take the image - avoids the need for NewSID (which never worked properly) and does it in the supported MS fashion. Saves all the minor headaches with things like WSUS too

[srochford]

Saves all the minor headaches with things like WSUS too

 

sysprep doesn't change the WSUS SID until you get to Windows 7 - delete the SID before you upload your master image and a new one is auto-generated.

[Freedom]

sysprep doesn't change the WSUS SID until you get to Windows 7 - delete the SID before you upload your master image and a new one is auto-generated.

 

Didn't know this, but then again I am on Windows 7 so

[kennysarmy]

Thanks.

We of course do SYSPrep our master images (XP PRO) - but until now had not deleted the "susclientid" key...