caouette

I got it working. IUB now images a machine, and successfully boots into Vista. Here's how I got it working. In my Hardware Specific Image source, I added a copy of bootsect.exe, and put this command in my deploy.bat, which runs the actual imagex.exe /apply command. Perviously, I had tried the bootsect.exe command after the imagex command. That didn't work. The bootsect command needed to be before the imagex command. Here is the contents of my deploy.bat file: bootsect.exe /nt60 c: /force imagex.exe /apply vista_image.wim 1 c: And the contents of the source files folder for the OS module: deploy.bat imagex.exe vista_image.wim wimscript.ini bootsect.exe And finally the contents of my Vista basemap: ImageUltra 3.0 - Windows XP Pro Primary Partition HSI OS Module for Windows Vista Enterprise -Mike

Ok, I almost have it working. I created my normal WIM image, and imported it into IUB as a Hardware Specific Image. I also set the image to deploy over the network to speed up the whole process. The computer gets repartitioned, and the WIM image applies to the c: drive. Unfortunately, upon first boot, I get an error that NTLDR can't be found. I can manually fix it by running "bootsect.exe /nt60 c:", but adding that command (and bootsect.exe) to the HSI OS module does not work. I'm gonna try the /force switch next. I think I can get it to work, and I'll let you guys know about my results. -Mike

Has anyone tried using ImageUltra Builder to deploy a Vista WIM image yet? I am experimenting with it, and wanted to see if anyone had any tips or tricks. I figure I should be able to at least install it as a "Hardware Specific Image". -Mike

We use IUB 3.01. I was testing 3.1, but also could not make it work. -Mike

Cool, thanks Dominus! I'll try your suggestions. I have IUB 3.01 working with both ultra portables and portable syspreps. I'm just testing 3.1 to see if is worth upgrading. -Mike

Interesting... I'll definitely try that tomorrow. If you have removed the unattend.txt module, how do you run it unattended? Do you leave the unattend.txt in the i386 dir? -Mike

Wow, didn't realize that there were this many IUB users out there. DrNewtonD, have you used version 3.10 yet? What are your opinions? I am just trying it out for the first time today, and can't get an ultra portable image to work. It deploys, but then after 1st boot it says that it can't find ntldr. -Mike

Yeah, we have a deal with them for our workstations, so we bought the software as well.

We use ImageUltra Builder from Lenovo to do our "imaging". We have 2 different types of deployments we use. The first is what is known as an "Ultra Portable" image... which basically means that the system runs an unattended setup of XP, detects the driver modules for the hardware you selected, then runs unattended setups for any applications you've put into your "basemap". We also use a "Portable Sysprep'ed" image, which is a ghost image of a basic XP installation, with special customizations that allow it to install the additional apps and drivers. The system works pretty well, but I'm looking for other people that use IUB, so I can see if there are any tips and tricks to getting faster deployments, or making the building of drivermaps easier or whatnot. I've been reading the forums here for a while, and have improved the Ultra Portable image just by using some of the tricks mentioned for the standard unattended installs. Cheers -Mike Caouette

I've been using an unattended install of XP for a while now, and one of the biggest complaints I have heard is that it simply takes too long to run the install. It still takes the standard 45 minutes to install XP. The techs working with me love the fact that we now have 1 "image" to maintain, rather than a bunch of sysprep'd ghost images. However, they really want to be able to deploy a new machine in about 20 minute, like ghost could. Anyway, at the upcoming "Windows Connections 2006" conference, Douglas Spindler is supposed to reveal how we can reduce installation time to 15 minutes. See here: http://www.devconnections.com/shows/WinSpr...lt.asp?c=1&s=73 My question is... how could he be doing this? I'm going to try to go the the conference, but I want to see if our collective minds can figure out a similar solution. Any ideas? -Mike Caouette