cdowgos

It is currently in offline servicing, I can switch it to auditsystem, pretty sure I tried that before though. Will that require the sysprep /audit command? or no?

from what I'm seeing it isnt really much different than what I already have other than putting %systemdrive% instead of C:\ ill change it though, maybe the driver path doesnt like drive letters? times like this i really miss old sysprep if it makes a difference this has no winpe, we just sysprep the machine (doing /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:unattend.xml) let it shut down, then upload it to an imaging server, when I pull the image to a machine it also pulls a driver layer for whatever the model is and dumps the drivers to C:\Drivers

attached is my unattend file, no matter what I do, I cant seem to get it to read the path specified for drivers. For instance, our dell E4300 laptops always show up with 2 unknown devices which are the smartcard system and bluetooth if I remember right. If I tell device manager to search C:\Drivers where I have the drivers, it finds and installs them, so I'm thinking theres maybe an issue with the driver path in the xml? another related question is, is there a way that I can get the updated drivers for each item for each pc from windows update and have those somehow update the driver store so we dont have to run win updates everytime we image a pc?

Yeah was just discussing with the CTO about either MAC filtering or issuing certs. Guess thats the only option, was easier for us in XP because we just used the Dell Wireless Utility to manage our networks via the encrypted wpn file.

its not just netsh though, its if you go to the properties on a connection, you export the wireless info or go to security tab and if admin, check a box to show password

since no one can figure this out (and I realize even if we disable export we can still go to properties on the connection and click show password) can anyone recommend a 3rd party, paid or free, wireless manager that disables wireless zero on w7 and takes it over for security?

whats the best way to get all drivers into one folder so I can point to it in my unattend? we have a bunch of dell laptops and I was going to make a driver layer for imaging, is there something I can run on the laptop to export all drivers and dump it to a directory so on sysprep it points to that directory for all my drivers?

the netsh command isnt as much as an issue as the actual copy to usb option, netsh will actually encrypt the key into hex, and when importing STILL asks for key, which is fine by us. but if you export to usb with the option in network, it gives an export with an exe to run, the problem is the export also has a wsettings.txt file that has the key in plain sight

dont care as much about the xml export that can be done from netsh, but is there a way, either in gpedit or registry, to disable the "copy this connection to usb drive"? our environment has hidden ssid and encryption that only a few people know the key to, we used to deploy and manage via the dell wireless utility, but thats pretty much defunct in Win7

still cant get it to ask for computer name... may have to go script method, which is a pain.

I actually removed that line and had the same thing happen, I read earlier that taking out the product key as well will prompt for computer name, so testing that now. tried your methods and the other ones listed and it doesnt make a difference.

It's me again, few quick questions, i attached my xml for you guys to look at, but for some reason the default user's settings (pinned items, etc) dont show up when I boot up off a fresh reimaging. It also still doesnt ask me for a pc name which is a pain. The other weird issue I'm having is after pulling down the image, I get a black screen, then have to run startup repair to repair entries in the boot list, any idea what is causing this? One other thing thats not totally related but someone here may know. Is there a place where you can add trusted software companies? for instance with the script that runs on first boot, it installs the Novell Client, but it asks if I want to trust them, I want it to know theyre trusted so when our techs reimage they can just kind of leave it running without interaction. Thanks in advance. forgot to add: what would i add into the xml once i get a vlk/kms setup? unattend.xml

If you did not use an unattend.xml and you generalized the machine, wouldn't 30 day trial be correct ? Yes, I think that's right, if you generalize a machine it resets the activation status and re-arms the 30 day counter. AFAIK the M$ approved method is to use an unattend.xml file during the sysprep process. Using my XML as an example, you would simply delete this line and it will prompt for a computer name. <ComputerName>Windows7</ComputerName> IMO you should use the random name setting so that your installation doesn't pause half way through. Then just need a simple script to rename the computers properly. Work smarter, not harder. its easier for our setup to ask for pc name during the unattend process, only because we have a bunch of help desk techs that do the imaging, need to make it foolproof my xml doesnt have a computername field, what pass/component is it on, guessing i have to name a pc in component then delete from xml i guess i was unaware of the new process for licensing on win7, coming from xp where my sysprep did everything i needed with serial etc, didnt need to reactivate, so i need to read about how it works now.. [edit] nevermind, read about KMS and swapping to a VLK, now the issue im having is my default profile settings not taking when rebooting and letting sysprep run its course, everything else runs tho, so now i'm down to this issue and it asking for a name, then im done

finally got everything up and running the way I was hoping to, the only issues I'm having now is it doesnt seem like its taking my product key settings since on first boot it shows a generic product ID and says i have 30 days to activate. the only other thing is i need to prompt for a computer name and i checked all the sites and cant find a definitive way for this to ask me what i want the computer name to be. thanks again for all the help.

We have a driver layer that downloads, we do PXE imaging, so I dont think the autounattend would work for me, but who knows. All I need is to be able to pull the windows 7 image down to multiple different dell desktops and laptops, on first boot after imaging, it will auto accept eula, use the same windows 7 license key, ask for pc name, already have our admin profile setup and not use the default one at all. then to run a batch script on first login. thanks for the help so far! kinda screwin around with it again, seeing if i can find whats in what components. its fun

I've looked a bit into it, but the minimal that I need done doesnt seem worth switching everything, we will probably still be doing what we have been for awhile anyway, the Windows 7 test group is about 10 laptops. Ideally I just want similar functionality in the sense that I need it to only prompt for pc name on first boot and run a script that I have placed on the C drive. As well as not prompting for key, etc.

I did find a few prebuilt xmls on here, I've been working with one of them and modifying it, it crashed out on me last night when I tried to test. The reason I use the drivers folder to deploy is in our zenworks imaging I have it setup to have different image layers, drivers, apps, os, etc. and it checks the system ID so when imaging it knows what model pc it is so it pulls the correct drivers which works great since we have 4 or 5 laptop models and 4 pc models to work with. learning a whole new system has become frustrating so far you would think Microsoft would have made some sort of migration tool

If I posted my old sysprep info on here could someone help me migrate it to the new windows 7 method? I tried using some templates for all the passes and components but I don't want to miss anything. Attached my sysprep.inf in case anyone can help, someone that worked here before me made this and its what we still use on our xp machines, but a few pcs are migrating to Win7 and I need to build an image. Thanks in advance Christofer edit: managed to talk to the guy who made our original INF. Main things I need are the default resolution, it to point to C:\drivers for any drivers it needs, and for the only thing to show up on first boot after imaging to be a prompt asking for computer name, then hitting next bringing it to the desktop to run a script to install a few things. Ideally we would only use WSIM to basically do what xp sysprep did. We use zenworks imaging so generally I make changes to the OS, then ran sysprep by selecting Use Mini-Setup and hitting reseal. sysprep.inf