Sysprep - Tried Everything - HELP!

[sintaxasn]

One more thing - make sure that there are no drivers installed during windows setup, but instead, install them after sysprep kicks in. You can do this by:

- From your WINNT.SIF, Removing the OEMPnPDrivers line

- Putting all your drivers somewhere in $OEM$\$1

- In your Sysprep.INF, putting in the OEMPnPDrivers line and adding the paths to the drivers there instead

This will ensure that you dont have a bunch of unnecessary drivers from one hardware type, that could potentially cause problems for another when you put the image on it.

Dan

[esanford]

From the MS link you posted, it looks as though my hopes of simply finding the right combination of settings to get one image to work will not be realized. Is there, however, a way to boot one image on both a PIC and APIC machine, even if it isn't supported by MS?

Thank you very much for your help by the way, Dan. The explanation of the difference between HALs was very helpful.

-Eric

[sintaxasn]

Check out this link:

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12269

you could probably adapt this further to automatically switch HAL when you actually get into windows (script it somehow), but you still have the initial selection which needs to be manual.

hope this helps

Dan

[esanford]

It seems very strange to me that the text setup on the Windows XP Setup CD can detect and install the correct HAL, but Sysprep (or Windows itself) cannot. Any indication if this will change with Longhorn?

[sintaxasn]

none yet that I'm aware of, but I would think so, and I'd bloody hope so. Longhorn is going to be all about ease of corporate deployment so they'd better solve this one.

I hear you about the fact that Windows Install itself can figure it out but sysprep cant. Not exactly sure why but I'm sure there's some in-depth technical explanation for it. That or someone got lazy...

Cheers, D

[esanford]

Is there anyone out there who could put together something to add this functionality to sysprep? Lord knows I can't, but there's some very knowledgable people out there....

[esanford]

The APIC image I built on an hp Compaq DC5000 doesn't boot on a newer Sony laptop. Could the fact that the DC5000 is HT (but disabled) have something to do with it? It installs the APIC HAL, but is it not actually the right one?

[sintaxasn]

Regarding building this into Sysprep, well, you can't really modify sysprep itself. You could potentially use Devcon prior to sysprepping your machine to downgrade the HAL type to a Standard PC which *should* work with any machine type, and then script something to change it back once the machine has booted up.

I was going to investigate this, but as I said before, MS doesnt support it so I can't argue with that (from an enterprise support perspective).

You're newer Sony laptop is probably still PIC. The only laptop I've come across so far that's APIC is a ThinkPad T43 (might be a newer chipset, or maybe something IBM specific).

You can do what I do to check:

Take the attached file

Run it from a DOS box with the commandline : SMBiosD.Exe > Output.Txt

Open the Output.Txt created in Notepad

Ctrl-F and search for APIC

If it is found, the machine is either an APIC uniprocessor or multiprocessor machine. The line should be "On-chip APIC supported"

If not, it is likely a PIC machine

Dan

SMBiosD.Exe

[Viper999]

That exe is ok, but it would be nice if there was a simple exe that could detect the processor type. You could then do a case in vb or an if statement and copy over the appropriate hal.

[esanford]

Running SMBIOS.EXE gives the error "NTVDM.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close". This Sony PCG-GRT250P lists "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" in the device manager. Isn't that the APIC HAL you mentioned? This Sony should boot with either the APIC image I created, or the PIC one, but it won't.

Thanks for your patience, Dan. I'm getting very frustrated that I can't even seem to come up with two images that will boot our PCs. I need a solution for this soon, then I can begin working on a scripted install for the future.

-Eric

[sintaxasn]

Viper, keep in mind you've prob only got two images to worry about, PIC and APIC (whether it's UP or MP, it doesnt matter). With this in mind, we know the SMBiosD.Exe can distinguish between a PIC and APIC machine by telling us if it supports APIC.

So lets try something...

_____

Dim oShell, oFSO

Dim oOutputFile, aBiosString(), iBiosRecords, sCurBiosString, sAPIC

Set oShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

' Set our APIC value to initially be false

sAPIC = False

sOutputFile = oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%TEMP%") & "\Bios.TXT"

oShell.Run "CMD.Exe /CSMBiosD.Exe > " & sOutputFile,0,True

'Read temp file into an Array

aBiosString = Split(UCase(oFSO.OpenTextFile(sOutputFile,1,False).ReadAll),vbCrlf)

iBiosRecords = CStr(UBound(aBiosString)+1)

'Delete temp file

oFSO.DeleteFile sOutputFile

'Find the exception we're looking for

For Each sCurBiosString in aBiosString

If Instr(1,Ucase(sCurBiosString),"ON-CHIP APIC SUPPORTED",vbBinaryCompare) <> 0 Then

sAPIC = True

Exit For

End If

Next

_______

As far as switching HALs, devcon's probably the way to do it, sorry I don't have more time to investigate.

Cheers, Dan.

[Viper999]

What is that written in ? Meaning can I just copy this code and save out as vbs? It would also need to live in the same directory as the exe as well. Thanks for your help.

Thanks,

Jim

[maxamoto]

Don't know if this will help or not, but if you are running Active Directory, RIS might suit your needs better. I know it has far less issues than sysprep, and it's a much faster install if you have a 100Mbit network and can afford the bandwidth hit you'll take deploying images. Anyway, hope this helps =]

[sintaxasn]

Eric,

Running SMBIOS.EXE gives the error "NTVDM.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close". This Sony PCG-GRT250P lists "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" in the device manager. Isn't that the APIC HAL you mentioned? This Sony should boot with either the APIC image I created, or the PIC one, but it won't.

Can you create an image (unttended build) *ON* this machine-type and subsequently get the same image to boot? If it wont boot, the problem must be something else other than HAL...

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that you're creating an APIC build on a different machine and trying to get it up and running on the Sony? If this is the case, maybe this HAL issue is bigger than I thought. I'm no expert, just speaking from my own experience.

Incidentally, what's your imaging software?

Thanks for your patience, Dan. I'm getting very frustrated that I can't even seem to come up with two images that will boot our PCs. I need a solution for this soon

No worries. I was stuck on this one for a number of weeks, at the hair-pulling-out stage - I wouldn't wish it on anyone!

Dan

[sintaxasn]

Viper, yep it's VBS. I haven't debugged it but it should work. Put the exe in the same folder, or reference a folder in the CMD /C<commandhere> part.

After it all, you'd probably have something like

If sAPIC = True Then

oShell.Run "DevCon <do_your_APIC_swapping_here>",1, True

End If

Dont have time to figure all this stuff out tho!

Re Maxamoto's comments on RIS, yep - RIS *WOULD* avoid this problem, but if you're in the same situation as our company is, we have about an hour to migrate a machine from 2000 to XP:

Backup user data (circa 4GB)

Image a machine (5GB)

Let sysprep run and machine config itself

Restore user data

We JUST about manage by using imaging (from USB 2.0 drives). Imaging is the only way to get turnaround times like this. I know some of our other european offices use RIS, but they dont have ridiculous SLA's to meet!

If you aren't under time contraints, consider RIS

Dan

Edited June 22, 2005 by sintaxasn