morganw Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 I'm trying to test deploying Windows XP with MDT2010 (booting via WDS). I've captured a syspreped XP image, and imported it as a new OS. Now when deploying it, it is ignoring all of the options that have been set in the sysprep.inf file. Looking at the task sequence for the deployment I'm pressing the button that says edit sysprep.inf (next to the option to edit unattend.txt) and I can see that the relevant bits have already been filled in by the OS import, so for example the license key has been set. During deployment it will prompt me for a licence key, workstation name, workgroup / domain, it just seems to be ignoring the sysprep file. Any ideas?
sted Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 for xp i believe it uses the sysprep.inf thats on the c drive (so inside the wim file in the sysprep folder) try opening up z copy of the wim file with dism and looking at that file if thats wrong then replace with a correct file a recompact to the wim file 1
themightymrp Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Quite right, the sysprep.inf file you are editing is used when deploying a fresh installation of XP. For a .WIM image file it will use the one stored within the image. Best bet is to setup your reference computer, run the setup manager tool to create a sysprep.inf file with your settings and then run sysprep to shut the machine down. Now boot to LAN and capture the image. This works a bit better than using the capturing sequence of MDT. 1
morganw Posted February 10, 2011 Author Posted February 10, 2011 Thanks. I didn't think it was possible to deploy a 'fresh' Windows XP image. I haven't got anything in the image, I just installed XP from a CD, then captured it straight away. Is there another way that I could deploy XP using MDT2010?
sted Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 best way i have found is use a cd or mdt to build image then sysprep it and pull an image into wds and deploy that image
themightymrp Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Attached is a setup guide for adding an XP deployment into MDT 2010 which can be used to install onto practically any machine. I wrote it for another school and they said it worked great. Any questions just ask.MDT 2010 instructions.doc 1
morganw Posted February 10, 2011 Author Posted February 10, 2011 The plan was to get a fresh install of XP as a WIM file, deploy that, then use the windows updates feature and application deployment of MDT to get it ready for people to use. It would mean a slow build but I wouldn't be deploying out-of-date images any more. Seem resonable? Or is there a better way?
sted Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 what about doing an install to a vm installing current updates but no drivers capture that as a wim file using wds and import that into mdt instead of an xp cd? mdt then should be able to deploy an up to date xp and drivers and use the sysprep file you put in creating the base image 1
morganw Posted February 10, 2011 Author Posted February 10, 2011 That's an idea, i'll take a look at that as well. Thanks.
themightymrp Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 The idea is fine, I just don't know how well a single .WIM image would work on different hardware? I haven't tried it like that. I have a full task sequence to install XP, drivers and generic software which I use on the first machine of any new builds we have. I then use ghost to make an image of it to use with the rest. I suppose I could get rid of ghost and just create a seperate .WIM for each build but can't be bothered . You can customise the task sequence to run windows updates from a WSUS server after the install has completed.
themightymrp Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 what about doing an install to a vm installing current updates but no drivers capture that as a wim file using wds and import that into mdt instead of an xp cd? mdt then should be able to deploy an up to date xp and drivers and use the sysprep file you put in creating the base image Hadn't thought of that... might give it a go as I use VMware Player to test my MDT deploys anyway!
morganw Posted February 10, 2011 Author Posted February 10, 2011 At the moment i'm using Fog with two syspreded images to image about 20 different modles of PC (and the second image is only for two models), it's mainly the driver management I'm looking to streamline by using MDT. I was under the impression that you couldn't install XP directly from source with MDT2010 (this is how it works in SpecOps Deploy OS and that's just a wrapper for MDT) but I'll give that a try in a minute, thank you for the instructions.
sted Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Hadn't thought of that... might give it a go as I use VMware Player to test my MDT deploys anyway! i very quickly tried it once but used a real pc (i have been replacing xp ghost images with xp wds images but individual and to be fair win7 per type im just used to doing it that way) and it wasnt happy but i suspect that was due to ide/sata ctrller drivers in the original wim
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now