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passmaster16

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  1. What we are looking to do is create a *universal* Windows 7 image that could be used on any of our desktops (HP & Gateway). We would create a separate *universal* image for our laptops (HP & Dell). We would be creating the Windows 7 environment (OS + Essential Applications) on a reference machine then use Sysprep combined with an unattended file to complete the setup on target computers. Right now, this is relatively straightforward with our XP build. We created our "base build images" years ago, and now we simply update our images every few months to include the latest patches and application updates. Then we run sysprep and use Ghost to make an image of machine. With XP, we can drop the image, update, sysprep, and push the image back as many times as we want. My first concern with Win7 is if sysprep /generalize can only be run 3 times, this would seem to prevent us from updating our images on a regular basis. After the third time, I assume it will no longer allow sysprep /generalize to be run. Right now, we probably update our XP images at least 3-4 times a year. So, my question is how does a corporate customer who constantly updates images handle this situation? We really wouldn't want to have to go back and build a fresh image of Win7 for the sake of running sysprep /generalize three more times. We are a volume licensed customer and will be using Win7 Enterprise. We would be using MAK activation. According to the WAIK documentation, it mentions setting the SkipRearm setting to 1 during the generalize phase but then set it back to 0 prior to deployment. Would this mean I would need two separate images? One image that is my base image that would be used for modification would have skiprearm enabled while my "gold" production image would not have skiprearm? My second concern is related to driver installation. I know that I could inject the drivers into the WIM, but I'd rather just let Windows PNP handle the work as was done with the OEMPnpDriversPath in XP. I read a thread http://www.msfn.org/board/unattended-driver-paths-t137538-pid-880434.html/page__p__880434__hl__OEMPnpDriversPath__fromsearch__1#entry880434 here that talked about adding a drivers path to either the AuditSystem or OfflineServicing passes. Has anybody done this with success? What about issues with unsigned drivers? Would it be better to install drivers during AuditSystem or OfflineServicing? My thought was to install them during OfflineServicing because that pass runs during Windows Setup. I would assume that to do it during AuditSystem would actually require Sysprep to be run twice, once to enter Audit mode and again to exit Audit mode and to start OOBE. Is this correct? Right now, I'm more or less being proactive in learning as much about the product as possible as we do not have any immediate plans for rolling out Win7 in the near term future.
  2. I'm using WinPE 2005 from the Windows 2003 SP1 source on a Sandisk USB flash drive. I've used this setup without issue on both desktops and laptops until recently when we received laptops with SATA controllers. I edited txtsetup.sif and successfully added the device strings for the SATA controller so that PE can see the hard disk. My issue now is that for some reason when SATA is enabled, and I boot from the USB key, the USB key gets a volume # of 1. This is problematic when I attempt to run Ghost 8 using the following command: ghost32 -clone,mode=prestore,src=image.GHO:1,dst=1:1,sze1=V -rb What happens is that even though the flash drive is assigned letter X, and my two existing NTFS partitions are C: and D:, the Ghost command is trying to restore the image to the first partition on Volume 1 which is assigned to the flash drive. So in this instance I have the following: Volume 0 - E: - CDROM Volume 1 - X: - USB Flash Drive Running PE (Removeable) Volume 2 - C: - NTFS Windows System Partition Volume 3 - D: - NTFS Data Partition Obviously I do not want this to happen. I want to restore my partition to C: regardless of the Volume #. Oddly enough, the behavior does not occur when I boot PE from a CD regardless if SATA is enabled. Also, if I turn off SATA and use ATAPI/IDE mode while booting PE from USB, I get the C: drive as Volume 1. Is there any way to either force my USB device to take Volume 1 upon bootup or is there a way to force Ghost to restore the image back to the C: partition? I was thinking I could probably use some sort of script to check the current Volume status but I'd like a simple solution as possible. Thanks
  3. Thanks. I was under the impression that BuildMassStorageSection is used to simply populate the SysprepMassStorage section of Sysprep.inf. Since I already populated SysprepMassStorage using sysprep -bmsd, I did not think BuildMassStorageSection was required. Doesn't Sysprep see that there is a SysprepMassStorage section and parse those drivers automatically? According to the deployment guide You can run the command Sysprep -bmsd instead of including the BuildMassStorageSection entry in your Sysprep.inf file. When you run the command Sysprep -bmsd, Sysprep populates a pre-existing [sysprepMassStorage] section, but the mass-storage controllers are not installed until the next time you run Sysprep. You can then delete items from this section before running Sysprep -reseal or Sysprep -factory on this installation. Installing a smaller number of items in the critical device database reduces the time required for this image to restart into the operating system.
  4. I just realized I should have posted this in the Unattended forum. Mods feel free move this. Thanks!
  5. I've always noticed this odd behavior with Sysprep for XP SP2. It seems that every other time I run Sysprep on my build image, it will alternate between shutting down very quickly (usually within a minute) vs taking a long time (20-30 minutes) to shut down. The behavior is actually documented on this http://www.vernalex.com/guides/sysprep/issues.shtml#drivers website. I am pretty certain that this is due to the fact that Sysprep is not parasing the SysprepMassStorage section of the Sysprep.inf file when these quick shutdowns occur. The issue never seemed to adversely affect my machines until I added the new Intel Sata drivers for new hardware we were getting in. After adding the new drivers and running Sysprep, my build machine did a quick shutdown. Upon restart, the Sata drivers did not install on my new hardware, and the system went into a reboot loop. I proceeded to go back and run Sysprep again, this time it took about 20 minutes to shut down. This resulted in a successful load of the image on my new hardware. Is this a known issue with Sysprep? Is there any way to force it to parse the Mass Storage section every time? One of the suggestions listed on the website above mentioned keeping a "gold" image and Sysprep it to create a "final" build. This would not be ideal as I have already run Sysprep on my final images so I'd have to rebuild them from scratch to have clean, non-sysprepped images available. For now I've been simply watching the Sysprep process, and if the machine shuts down too quick, I just reboot it, log in and run Sysprep again. This usually results in the proper parsing of the Mass Storage drivers. It's a bit Inconvenient though so I'd like to know of a way to force the parsing every time. I'm running sysprep -mini -reaseal A sample of my Sysprep.inf file is below ;SetupMgrTag [unattended] OEMSkipEula=Yes UpdateInstalledDrivers=yes DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore OEMPnpDriversPath="\i386\$oem$00_chipset; removed remaining drivers" [GuiUnattended] AdminPassword="password" EncryptedAdminPassword=NO OEMSkipRegional=1 OemSkipWelcome=1 OEMDuplicatorString= [userData] ProductKey=XXXX FullName="User" OrgName="name" ComputerName= [Display] BitsPerPel=32 Xresolution=1024 YResolution=768 [GuiRunOnce] [identification] JoinWorkgroup=WINXP [Networking] InstallDefaultComponents=Yes [sysprepMassStorage] *pnp0a00=c:\windows\inf\machine.inf *pnp0a01=c:\windows\inf\machine.inf removed remaining drivers
  6. I've been testing WinVista Enterprise over the past few months and been reading up on the license schemes. It seems to me that for a medium-large corporate environment, a combination of KMS activation (for machines that regularly connect to corporate LAN) and MAK activation (for field site machines/laptops that could be off the network for a while) would be the most logical approach. With that being said, is there a way, post-image (I've seen mention of a vb script), to force the machine to use one or the other? We have an enterprise agreement with MS so our Vista Enterprise DVD does not prompt for a key code during installation. I wasn't sure if the activation is something that needs to be set prior to image capture. The ideal situation would be to maintain a single "production" image that could be used with either activation scheme depending on the purpose of the machine. Thanks
  7. Would this mean I would need two seperate images? One image that is my base image that would be used for modification would have skiprearm enabled while my "gold" production image would not have skiprearm?
  8. Forgive me if this has already been mentioned. I tried to do a search but could not find any hits on this exact topic. Up to this point, with our XP build, we update our images every few months to include the latest patches and application updates. Then we run sysprep and use Ghost to make an image of machine. With XP, we can drop the image, update, sysprep, and push the image back as many times as we want. My concern with Vista is if sysprep /generalize can only be run 3 times, this would seem to prevent us from updating our images on a regular basis. After the third time, I assume it will no longer allow sysprep /generalize to be run. Right now, we probably update our XP images at least 3-4 times a year. So, my question is how does a corporate customer who constantly updates images handle this situation? We really wouldn't want to have to go back and build a fresh image of Vista for the sake of running sysprep /generalize three more times. We will be using Vista Enterprise. We have not decided which kind of activation that we will use yet. Right now, we're more or less being proactive in learning as much about the product as possible as we do not have any immediate plans for rolling out Vista in the near term future. Another post similar to mine is out on the newsgroups http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.p...8a49db43b014191 Thanks in advance!
  9. Hi, With the help of this forum, I have Windows PE set up as a boot option in my boot.ini file. My goal was to have this option available to our techs when they have to reghost a PC. My concern now is the Windows PE is not password protected. Now when it boots up, the server portion is obviously password protected but this does nothing to stop somebody from booting to PE to copy data over from the local drive. Is there anyway to password protect WinPE itself so that a password must be entered when PE is booted? Or if that is not possible, is there a way to hide the WIndows PE boot option in the boot.ini? I know that I could totally remove it and simply copy down the boot.ini with the option in it but it really defeats the purpose of what I am trying to do here. Is there any way to hide the option like how Windows uses the F8 key to display safe mode or how some PC vendors use other F keys to display a recovery menu? Any ideas? Thanks
  10. Hi, I have two ghost images, one for desktops and the other for laptops. The desktop image was built on a Gateway 3Ghz P4 and the laptop image was built on a Dell Pentium M. Both images have been sysprepped prior to pushing the ghost image. The images work relatively well except for the fact that the PC will hang at agpcpq.sys when I boot to safemode, whether its safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, etc. The PC will sit at agpcpq.sys for about 10 minutes until it finally boots into safe mode. Once it gets to safe mode, the PC, laptop or desktop, seems very sluggish and unstable. What might cause this? We have our images up to date with the latest patches. We do have the Novell 4.90 SP2 client installed as well as Zenworks 4 agent. Our desktops are Gateways but our laptops are Dells. The behavior is the same on both. And why would this happen in safe mode but not in normal mode? The only thing I was thinking is that I do use the same image on all of our P4 desktops and PM/P4 laptops. However, that does not make sense as the behavior even occurs on the PC that I built the images on. Any ideas?
  11. I'm trying to get the current IP address of the machine so that I can use it to determine our site location. Oddly enough, when I use my PE build based on WinXP SP2, the code runs fine. When I try the same code using the Win2003 SP1 source, it fails. Is there something else besides the /WMI switch during the mkimg.cmd that I have to include It fails on the following line: Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") The error message is: error '800401e4' Invalid syntax
  12. Nevermind...I got it working. I forgot to copy the setupldr.bin into the root of C: as peldr Once I did this it worked like a charm. Thanks Bilou_Gateux and Mats for this solution...using Bart's bootloader mod is very slick indeed.
  13. Hi, I downloaded the latest PEBuilder source from Bart. I followed mats instructions but I get the following error when I try to boot Windows PE NTLDR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart Any ideas? WinXP boots fine and PE boots fine if I just use its bootsector files. Did I do something wrong with mkbt or nt2peldr? Thanks.
  14. Hi all, For the past few weeks, I've been fooling with PE. Today I made WinPE 2005 using Windows 2003 Sever SP1 as the source. Prior to this, I was using XP SP2 as the source but I was having issues booting from the hard disk using the XP source (was getting 0x0000007b stop errors) . Oddly enough, I have no problems booting that XP source from my usb flash drive or CD. But that isn't really my concern right now so more about the issue at hand. I created an .iso from my Server 2k3, I copied it to my XP machine into the root of C: I then created a winnt.sif in the root of C: to point to the WinPE .iso image. Per the Microsoft documentation, I copied over the ntdetect.com and setupldr (renamed ntldr) again into the root of C: And I rebooted the machine. All is well to this point. It boots to WinPE just fine. My issue now is I would like to be able to boot to XP or PE on the same drive. See, I have PE setup to connect to our network server so I can perform ghost image loading and other various diagnostics. I created a menu in vbscript so that I can simply enter a number corresponding to the function I like to perform (I didn't want to bother with adding a shell just for this.) So, if we need to reghost the machine, rather than having a boot disk, simply boot the PC and select Win PE from the menu. I use the .iso so that I can load PE into the ramdisk. Then this makes the C: drive available to do whatever I want, format, ghost, etc. BUT, I don't know how, or if it is even possible, to do this. Essentially, I need to do a ramdisk boot from .iso via the boot.ini file. Now I know that you can load PE (by installing the recovery console first) using boot.ini if the PE source is available on the C: drive -- I'm referring to the method in the Microsoft doc, but the problem is that it is not being loaded into the ramdrive at that point. If I tried to do a ghost with PE up that way, it'd probably crash. I thought there would be away to interface boot.ini with the winnt.sif or the ntldr somehow so that a ramdrive iso boot can be selected and initiated via the boot.ini menu. Any thoughts on this? Ideally, I would like to just add this to my XP ghost images and hopefully eliminate the need for CD/Flash drive boot disks for 85% of our reghosts. We do not use RIS and do not have PXE so I'd really like to get this going. Thanks in advance.
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