Tripredacus

This thread might be helpful:

Okay - this doesn't inspire me with confidence. I guess the key thing is to have a tool that will reliably restore a working and bootable system, so if I'm not confident ImageX can provide this, I'll veer towards using DriveImage XML. This isn't a problem with Imagex, its more a problem with DiskPart, the program I used to format volumes. Diskpart was changed in WinPE 3 from WinPE 2, I found this by accident. And I only encountered these problems because I had a partition on the HDD that was doing the work. Network use of Imagex works fine with XP, never a problem!

I would be interested to know what this pop-up says...

Sleep can be interrupted by programs running on the system. Hibernate (I do not believe) is effected like this. Here is something you can check out. Run gpedit.msc - In Local Computer Policy, expand Administrative Templates - expand System - expand Power Management - click on Sleep Settings you want to look at "Allow Applications to Prevent Automatic Sleep (plugged-in)" another one may be "Turn on the Ability for Applications to Prevent Sleep Transitions (plugged-in)" Presumably, disabling this should stop this behaviour, however I have not tried it. Another thing to check, make sure you have the Standby State set to S3 in the BIOS. Some motherboards will come from the factory with S1 specified. If it says S1&S3 that is ok.

I encountered this problem (in theory anyways) when creating my own recovery partition. There is no easy way to do it! The best idea I came up with was to read something unique about the disk, like the drive serial number or something written into the MBR. Unfortunately, I never got past the R phase of the R&D on that one since the project got shelved.

Welcome to the MSFN!

Have you tried updating the drivers? Code 10 can mean only a couple of things: - device is disabled in BIOS (its not) - device is malfunctioning (its not) - the driver is not correct For example, if you were to force a NIC driver to install on an unsupported device, you can get a Code 10.

A wrapper is a program, script or batch file that "wraps" around another program. So yes, it is just a script if we keep the terms simple. You need to first be able to detect your monitor. The best bet would probably use WMI. You need to detect if it is connected... I'm not sure which class it would appear in! You'll have to play around with that. I had written a program that gets motherboard info from WMI, but you can get other info if you want also. You could also maybe check the registry, but the keys for monitors do not always get removed when you disconnect them. I made a post here about how to read WMI: Once you get something started, and you still need help, make a post here: http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/66-programming-c-delphi-vbvbs-cmdbatch-etc/ Or we can move this thread there instead.

Vroom Vroom!

The reason there are problems using Imagex to back up the system is due to the fact that it (may) keep file permissions. You shouldn't use it to back up the entire system, but you can use it to back up files... do not use it to back up the registry or the Windows folder, for example. It isn't too horrible if you don't mind having to deal with the Advanced File Permissions screen! Another reason is due to changes in how Windows imaging works starting with Vista. However, this method that you show here SHOULD work for XP. I say "should" because the only problems you "may" run into is needing to Activate Windows after a restore. The other problem you have when it comes to doing HDD to HDD restores with Imagex and XP images, is that it doesn't always work. I ran into this issue when I made a recovery partition. Things may be different with WinPE 3, however certain instances of "volume locking" had appeared and resulted in failure of the restore. This problem was not solved (because there was no longer XP support for me at the time) but it had something to do with restoring images to the same physical drive. This problem only showed up with XP, never had a problem with Vista or Server 2008. Interestingly enough, Windows 7 and Windows System Image Backup work with Windows RE and Imagex to make backups of the drive. This process is fairly automated. The entire idea behind how Imagex works is the basis behind such cool OSes like Storage Server 2008 Enterprise, which uses SiS (Single Instance Storage) and this is the feature that most people like about WIMs.

When I did network deployments, after the OS was installed, I created a temp folder and copied programs into there. Then I have a program that searches for that folder and installs what is in there. This program is put in the Startup folder in the Start Menu. After the program installs the software, it deletes itself from the Startup folder, deletes the temp folder and restarts the PC.

First you'd need to know if the Samsung software actually runs if the monitor is not plugged in. If it doesn't run then you could schedule it normally. If it does run, then you'll need a wrapper for launching this software. There may be better ways to do this, but this is the first thing that comes to mind: When the monitor is connected, it should appear in Device Manager as a specific name. If it shows up as Generic Monitor, there could be an issue, Even so, there should be a unique ID that the monitor will notify Windows with. Is this an LCD or a CRT monitor? Basically, your "wrapper" would be set up with logic like this: IF "device x" is detected THEN run program.exe ELSE do nothing.

Well at least not DESIGNED for use with a PC. However there is such thing as wireless television... to a point. Support for it is being tested in certain markets. You may be able to find consumer devices for it, but may be expensive and time consuming getting it to work with a PC. Might be better to wait for the technology to become more accessable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Home_Digital_Interface

I have not tried to deploy Windows 7 images with a 2003 server. It may be a reporting issue. I did do Vista with 2003, but the XML inside the WIMs changed when 7 came out, might be related.

You can make a 64bit (amd64) unattend file on a 32bit OS. Is this the question?

We have multiple guides stickied in this forum too, including this one:

It should not grow in size during deployment at all. It only grows if something is added to it. This is probably a bug but oh well. Anytime you add something or even remove something from a WIM, the image file index gets updated but the actual unused files do not get removed. They only do during an export. I do not know why your image would grow during deployment. The only thing I can think of is you are confusing the Image Index with the WIM. The base WIM can have multiple images inside of it.

I am guessing the reason why sysprep is causing a problem is because the version of the installer you are using isn't designed to work like that. I looked for a redist version but couldn't find one. What you can try doing is instead of just deleting those reg keys, export them on your master, delete the keys and then reapply them after deployment. Otherwise I'd wait for a redist to show up.

You can pull the serial number (or other info) from the BIOS by using WMI Classes. The part you need is probably in W32_Baseboard but I may be wrong. You'll have to do some playing with a system to determine which object you need to pull. I wrote a script in AutoIT that pulls information, I can post this example, but the Serial Number in my example may be for the actual motherboard's serial, not the Serial Number object in the DMI. I have another script somewhere that pulls what you want but I have no idea where that is. You can execute a VBS script at First Logon, but unfortunately this would come after joining the domain via the Unattend.xml.

I have used this operator without error before. Make sure you are specifying a path for the file. Just specifying the file name itself means Windows will save it somewhere. Do you know where that place is? Are you not sure the file you are looking at is in-fact the one that was just written?

I am interested in the same thing, but I believe I already have a head start on the extra network hardware. The thing you need to do is use a wireless router as an Access Point. You may want to look into custom firmware for your router if it does not support that ability. I haven't started doing anything yet myself except upgrade the router connected to the internet. I have my Win98 PC that I still want to get online using this method.

I was in the OEM Channel at the time of posting. On a little vacation right now.... but OEMs can't use MDT for deployment, it is licensed only for the Enterprise. You still use the WAIK and MDT at the same time I believe.

How are you installing Essentials? I know the version you have is likely different than the ones I had used, so not sure how differently it behaves. Then again I never tried to create an image with it already installed. I had always installed it in Audit mode after the image was deployed.

I figured. Not knowing what that CD actually is (looking at file contents won't help too much) its hard to tell exactly why your PC is giving you that screen. What should happen, if you click the YES button, it should open the XP OOBE program and let you call into the MS Activation Center. If the NIC driver is installed and able to get online, it should be able to register online instead. Not sure why this screen isn't coming up for you. As to why that Yes/No box came up after the install makes me think the CD they gave you is recovery media for an OEM. Without going into too many details, OEM OSes look for information in the BIOS about the computer. If that is missing, then it will show this Yes/No box, but only if the grace period has expired. EDIT: Actually I've seen this in one other instance, but not on an install, so I don't know if it is relevant.