Imaging Windows 7 build

[sidnuts]

Hi,

We've built a windows 7 machine with bucket loads of software on it for deployment via WDS. Problem is, we've run out of sysprep attempts on it, and don't really want to spend another 5 days building it again from scratch. Any ideas on how to rearm the machine?

[Guest TheLibrarian]

It seems a lot of people fall foul of this particular trap.

 

You didn't disable re-arm when you did the sysprep'ing.

 

You can still sysprep if you disable the rearm, although I don't know how you will get new machine ID's which are vital if you want to KMS activate Windows.

 

I've attached the .XML file that you can use with sysprep to stop it rearming Windows.

 

Disable_Rearm.zip

 

 

Hope this helps.

[ricki]

Hi

 

Is the image built on a image from a supplier like dell with a restore partition. If it is we could not sysprep ours. We had to wipe the machine including all the partitions and start from scratch with the install from the dvd with out VLK from county. We tried deleting the restore partition but that did not work. When we did get it to work we joined it to the domain and group policies did not apply.

 

Richard

[ChrisH]

You should use a VM where ever possible to build your reference images so you can revert back to just before sysprep.

[RTFM]

You can hack away at resetting the rearm count through registry and messing with some system files but in honesty would you want to on your image machine? I wouldn't personally.

 

I'd suggest starting again, sorry to say. As mentioned doing this on a VM is brilliant.

 

See here and here if your determined to give it a go.....

[ChrisMiles]

If you activate the computer against a KMS server you wont get a limit on the number of syspreps.

[Dan_ATR]

Im sorry if im being very ignorant here but using sysprep for windows 7 a network seems a bit old now?!?!

 

We use WDS, and GP to do all of this for us. Its really fast and dynamic. PM if you need any help.

[Michael]

Unfortunately if you've gone over three attempts, you'll need to start again. As others have stated, if you start hacking with the master image, you may run into problems later.

 

Apparently one advantage to Windows 8 is that there is no rearm limit. I'm not quite sure why Microsoft decided to limit it to three attempts on Windows 7. Very strange to be honest.

[sidnuts]

Thank you for replying, we have now started image from scratch...and also looking into using Fog.