[wds] Windows 7 equivalent to Sysprep.inf?

[Sam_Brown]

Morning All,

 

Our old way of deploying Windows XP was to build an image, create a Sysprep.inf file to hold all the details like serial key, joining domain details etc, copy Sysprep to the image and run it.

 

We'd then be able to capture the XP image.

 

Deploying was easy. You'd PXE boot into WDS. Format the hard disk and select the image you'd want to deploy. It would download the image and then on first boot you could give it a computer name and set the local administrator password and you were good to go.

 

Is there a similar way to do this for Windows 7 at all?

 

I can run Sysprep to return Windows 7 to OOBE. I can capture it and then deploy it but then it will return to the normal first run screen. No options to add serial key or join to the domain.

 

Is there a way to have it automatically join the domain, set a windows key and ask for a computer name while automating everything else?

[LeMarchand]

I found this guide invaluable.

 

Basically you create the current equivalent of the inf file - the unattend.xml - and it does its thing.

[LeMarchand]

Oh - obviously had to tweak it a bit (for instance not sure why the 5 logons, 1 is sufficient) and it took a few goes to get it right (I took a Clonezilla clone beforehand just in case) but it all seems fine now. I just use the same xml with occasional tweaks (I support 4 schools) for all images.