Br4tt3

Hi! If I create a "Prepare to capture" installation of Vista and BDD, then machines installs properly according to my unattend.xml file. Once installed, I can run sysprep pointing to a specific sysprep.xml file which will launch an application once it is finished. This works.... however, I dont wanna use the "Prepare to capture" feature, I wanna use the "Capture" feature. The problem here is that BDD does not create a "sysprep.xml" file, only the unattend.xml file. If I want to have a specific application executed once when the machine comes out of sysprep, but not in the unattended installation, then how would I describe that in the .xml files? Cause if I specify that the <app1.exe> will be launched from the OOBE (RunSynchronous) section, the <app1.exe> will executed both from within the unattend install as well as when the machine is coming up from sysprep. The only solution that I can think of is to break out the OOBE section into a seperate .xml file, and then have BDD to point on that .xml file once it runs sysprep. But, as mentioned, I dont know where that file is or where BDD reads from?

I dont understand if it is even possible to move the BCD store from one partition to another once u r up and running in full blown Vista? Cause I can change the current bcdentries, but I cant seem to "move" or create a "new" store that will act as the system store to another partition... If I point the entries to my new partition and set diskpart to activate that partition, once I reboot it will fail with an error stating that no BCD store found.... I tried creating that store by running both the <bootsect /nt60 d:> command and with the <bcdedit /createstore filename> but that one only creates a none system store.... Any ideas? Or if it is possible?

Oh... fixntfs.exe turned up to be bootsect.exe...

Where ever I google, people seem to be talking about a utility named fixntfs.exe when dealing with bcedit.exe but I cant seem to find it... anyone know where to grab it?

Hi! So what I want to do, is to create an unattend installation of Vista, sysprep it and then capture it into a .wim file, right? Oh, by the way, I am using BDD for that right now.... once I have my syspreped c: drive in the image format, once I wanna deploy the image to a client with only one big c: drive, I wanna shrink the drive using the diskpart command. Once I have shrunk the drive to contain a new formated partition I will have to create a new BCD store, and here is where I run into problems (BitLock seems appealing).... the diskpart operations are working smoothly (also setting the new partition as active) but I dont understand how to make use of the BcdEdit command really... I have searched the forum, and there are some things that are intressting (gsm's *.hta and so on) but I does not solve my issue.... Anyone having the same scenario in front of them? or already solved this issue? Cause all of my xp machines are having one big c: partition and no other partitions... so when deploying the upcoming Vista reference .wim file to these clients, I wanna be able to shrink the partition once I hit full Vista... of course, there is an option to fix the drives prior to applying the .wim image but it would be nice if I could do it once I have already applied Vista...

Solution to the above mentioned problem: just add the a build of ur desired operating system and supply the information, once done, a reference folder of ur build name will have been created below the Control folder, create a $OEM$ folder and BDD will search and use this specific directory structure (based on prio) rather than using the default $OEM$ folder. According to the "Computer Imaging System" team guide: Adding Windows XP Professional to the distribution share is similar to adding Windows Vista. Use the same wizard for both. For Windows XP Professional, BDD 2007 still supports the $OEM$ folder structure. If the Computer Imaging System feature team created an operating system–specific $OEM$ folder, the team can use that folder by storing it in the following locations of the distribution share (BDD 2007 searches the folders in the following order): • Control\Build\$OEM$, where Build is the ID of the build with which to associate the $OEM$ folder structure. • Operating Systems\Destination, where Destination is the name of the operating system with which to associate the $OEM$ folder structure. • $OEM$, which is at the root of the distribution share. Stay cool....

Have anyone figured out how MS want to have seperate $OEM$ structures for diffret OS:s? Let's say I wanna add XP/2003 and Vista to my BDD WorkBench interface! But I want to have XP and 2003 sharing the same $OEM$ structure and files, while Vista is to have a seperate one? I believed that this was acchieved using two seperate Deployment Points, but that does not create the proper directory structure for me as within the Distribution folder! Am I supposed to copy the directory structure contained within Distribution share to my new Deployment Point or what?

hi guys! just connected to MS connect site (connect.microsoft.com) and checked in on my participation of the BDD solution accelerator, and guess what, it's gone... checking further, there is msg: "Business Desktop Deployment 2007 is Now Released " - but when I checked in on the main MS "Desktop Deployment" website on TechNet there is no change, I guess there will be some update soon, so keep ur s0x dry and check in on the website frequently to download BDD! Unless they are not joking once again at MS.... Man, that's the last piece of software that I am waiting on before implementing Vista!!! I feel like a little kid before x-mas eve, i wont be able to get some sleep.... geeks r us!

Hi! Just to sort things out: U can have legacy WDS images (wim images that contain sysprep:ed pre Windows Vista operating systems) within ur WDS configuration. Those would be called <Install> images... If u r running ur WDS server in mixed mode, then the WDS will be able to serve legacy RIS images as well... in other words, u can run ur old RIS images from the new WDS machine as long as it is in mixed mode. Then again, u gonna need to add a boot image (only works with WinPE 2.0 and forward) to get machines to boot of the WDS server properly... Hope this helps u out...

And another one that seems to have the same issue: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=90434

Once u have installed WDS, the installation will use a diffrent set of boot files, in the relative path of remoteinstall\boot\<architechture>\ However, these are not in place until u have added a boot image using either wdsutil or the mmc... so go ahead and add a boot image, the boot files, pxeboot.com or pxeboot.n12 will then occur and u can boot either 32 or 64 bit enabled machines off the WDS box.... So ur WDS is prolly just fine, it just needs a little love....

Hi! First of all; Read and search the forum, it will provide u with the most of ur questions..... Question #1: To big to get started on it, read the *.chm files and the forum and off u go! Question #2: To get .wim files in place, capture, create, read, mount, unmount and so on, u use the imagex.exe tool provided from the WAIK install. Again, it is in the *.chm files Question #3: WAIK contains the WDS installation, WDS is a upgrade to the RIS installation which enables PXE deployments of Vista based images and not flat images as in RIS.

I dont really get that.... unless you are running on ia64 (itanium = pure 64) which is not very common, the x86/x64 compatible processors are determined by the actual operating system runnin ontop of it, it is the same processor, just depending on the OS, then bit width will be either 32 or 64.... then should not WMI work? It seems to do the trick for me. I also read the Win32_Processor AddressWidth property to resolve WMI filters and stuff...

You say they all work in WinXP! Is that WinPE based on WinXP or on a full blown domain joined XP box? Cause the only thing that I have seen is that, if you try to access the LDAP service (AD) from a workgrouped machine (which WinPE is) then u also need to supply a connection context (user and pass) for the adsi script. Another thing that I had some problems with earlier was that I could not request the RootDSE object (which is used for binds) until I had autenticated.... I connected to my LDAP using: LDAP://<domain.com> format to get it to work... If u are having troubble connecting from ur WinPE to the AD, then maby u wanna add a little LDAP browser so that u can more easily see if also fails, or it works, then u know that the underlying LDAP support is in place. I recommend a tool called: adsvw.exe (MS - Active Directory Browser) which is a single .exe file.

A true .wim image is by definition sysprep:ed... so when creating your "template" computer, by for example running an unattended setup installation of vista, before deploying that reference configuration you need to make it generic, in other words sysprep it and then capture it to the .wim format again before deploying it onto 1000's of clients..... also pretty interessting that MS delievers a sysprep:ed image to customers with the vista dvd, otherwise, it would not be usable from lets say WDS. We as customers, then can install a referece machine and sysprep again. With XP and it was only support one machine once, before redoing the whole thing again and again which was pretty annoying... now u could it 100 of times without performing a full wipe of the reference machine.

Hi! We had the same issue as you are describing but at last it just worked... I also suspected that the .inf could not be parsed into a .pnf since the binlsvc is no loner in place after the wds upgrade, but then at last, the parsing of the .inf was done. Dont ask me how, cause I did not change any settings. From now, I have been able to install new / add new drivers as normally into the "old" RIS box:es without any additional configuration. I also asked my MS contact person how this worked, and he said they put the same parser into the wdsserver service as they used within the BINLSVC service. The only logical explenation I know off, is that you must ensure that you are running wds in mixed mode but after that it is a big enigma! Let me know if the ultimate truth comes along.... I will keep an eye on this thread! and if there is anyone else that has run into this issue....

Hi! I have never done it for WinPE 2.0 but I did it for WinPE 2005 (2003 SP1) and I used Johan Arwidmarks guide on MyITForum to acchieve it: I dunno if the same .dll files and so on are ported over to WinPE 2.0 (Vista) but why not go ahead and try it out, and report back if it works..... The following files are needed within WinPE 2005: 1. activeds.tlb 2. adsldp.dll And the guide link is: http://www.myitforum.com/articles/14/view.asp?id=8810 Hope it solves it for u...

Hi! In previous versions of Windows, there has been something called the Microsoft .Net framework configuration tool which lets u configure security related stuff in regards of .Net support. Thats does not seem to be the case with Framework 3.0 that is accopanied with Vista! Any one know where to find the equivilant of the Microsoft .Net framework configuration tool in Vista (Mscorcfg.msc)? Cause right now an application that is C# will run on my xp / Framework 2.0 machine but not on my vista / Framework 3.0 machine..... There are loads on info on how go about on the previous versions, but not the Vista implementation... searched the forum, but without luck! Need to practice my google skills I guess....

If possible, I would strongly recommend that u boot the PE from an .iso file off the RIS box.... that would then be a RAM boot, but it is much smoother than dealing with the underlying flat structure. The image will be downloaded using UNDI or something, so all u need to worry about is having the driver in place within PE. The offical way of having a flat image in place first, the copy and adding PE files does not really appeal to me....

Hi! U can setup WDS so that u need to authenticate once u try to access the install images kept on the WDS when booted into WinPE 2.0..... that would be the default scenario. And the part where u wanna format the drives can be done in two ways..... mount and edit the boot.wim file, then edit the startnet.cmd batch file to perform the actions u want to have in there... this would be the "old" approach..... the new would be to create a .xml file (using WAIK/WSIM) for the boot image that u r using to boot from (WinPE 2.0), then in the Windows PE section u can perform the custom disk operations prior to the installation of the image. I think the values for disk operations can be found in the unattend.chm file that comes with the WAIK! They would look something like: <DiskConfiguration> <Disk wcm:action="add"> <DiskID>0</DiskID> <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk> <CreatePartitions> <CreatePartition wcm:action="add"> <Order>1</Order> <Type>Primary</Type> <Extend>false</Extend> <Size>3000</Size> </CreatePartition> <CreatePartition wcm:action="add"> <Type>Primary</Type> <Extend>true</Extend> <Order>2</Order> </CreatePartition> </CreatePartitions> <ModifyPartitions> <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add"> <Active>true</Active> <Format>NTFS</Format> <Label>VistaBoot</Label> <Letter>H</Letter> <Order>1</Order> <PartitionID>1</PartitionID> <Extend>false</Extend> </ModifyPartition> <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add"> <Active>false</Active> <Extend>false</Extend> <Format>NTFS</Format> <Label>BitLocker</Label> <Letter>C</Letter> <Order>2</Order> <PartitionID>2</PartitionID> </ModifyPartition> </ModifyPartitions> </Disk> <WillShowUI>Never</WillShowUI> </DiskConfiguration> Hope it works out for u....

Hi! I can only encourage you to let Vista randomly build your name when joining the computer to the domain using the name property of (*). Once you have reached full blown Windows, let a script that always will be run set the name for you given the naming standard of your corp. That way, the computers will always be unique when joining the domain, and then complying with ur comp naming convention provided from the script. There is loads of examples with vbscript, and others have done the same thing....

It's working.... Jazkal = 1 Br4tt3 = 0

I will give it a go..... u just may have saved my friday plans, man! Gone sleep with a Clint poster above my bed tonight! Reporting back later man.....

Hi! and thanks for your answer... do u know if u only keep ur amd64 directory stored on the network, or the whole CD? Cause I copy my amd64 directory locally before running the winnt32.exe command. When I try to check for the file w_isdel.exe it cannot be found else then in the i386 dir on the CD which I didnt copy... Also, when checking my c:\$win_nt$.~ls\ path (which is created) it does not contain an i386 dir, only the amd64 dir which is really confusing... I will try with the /makelocalsource options as well! Gonna be a long friday I guess...

Try adding the /tempdrive:<drive> option to your launch command.... works for me! Not on x64 though...