The amount of info you are requesting is difficult to fully answer. A lot of the answers are already on the forum. WAIK is your base toolkit. You'll need this either way. It includes DISM and WSIM, and also gives you the ability to create a WinPE as well as contains the documentation on the WAIK, WinPE and Unattended settings. Get this and read through the WAIK guide to get started. DISM is the tool you use to service Win7 and WinPE images. You can mount volumes, add drivers and updates/packages to an image offline. WSIM is the tool you use to create answer files for installation or sysprep. MDT is an enterprise level tool that you can create lite and zero touch deployments from either a deployment server or from bootable media. MDT is not licensed for use by a System Builder or an OEM to assist in deployment of systems destined for resale. Everyone does their base image creation differently. I don't use VMs but I use actual test systems. My workflow is: 1. Create answer file to deploy to Audit Mode. 2. Use answer file with install media to install OS to system. 3. In Audit Mode, make changes as necessary, then sysprep /generalize /audit 4. Capture image to server using Imagex Then I can add drivers to the image for whatever hardware its going on, or add programs to it or put an answer file that covers the OOBE pass. Yes Generalize will remove system specific infos such as what hardware is installed. When you boot an image that has been generalized, Sysprep will redetect all hardware and look for drivers in the driver store to install. I keep track of what drivers go into what image, so that there isn't multiple drivers included for the same HwIDs. These things are not touched during Generalize. I don't know about your other questions. Look at our topic of help guides here: