Sysprep Win XP, Network Link Speed & Duplex

[wilsonmpp]

I am having issues when deploying a XP image over a network, this issue arises

because of the Auto Negotiation of the Network Link & Duplex settings is causing an unexpectedly huge amounts of traffic.

Does anyone know a way to save the link speed & Duplex into a syspreped image,

the changes are there before the sysprep but after deploying the image they disappear back to default settings. Is there a WSH script or Reg Hack that can be run to change these settings at logon or grouppolicy. I have had very little luck finding any solutions so far appart from this one.

Workaround: Manualy change the speed on the Local Area Connection Properties\Advanced tab, Link Speed & Duplex change from Auto to 100Mbps/Full Duplex then reboot the pc. NIC is Intel Pro 100 VM.

Thanks.

[wilsonmpp]

Anyone?

[Keskauko]

I resolved this issue just yesterday for the Intel Pro 100 VM NIC built in to HP D220 computers. You are correct in that there is no setting for sysprep.inf file to force the network adaptor to 100Mbps/Full Duplex. Why? This is because the advanced settings for the network adaptor are vendor specific. There is no method for Microsoft to create an entry for Sysprep to force NIC speed because there is no standard for it.

You'll need to find the Speed&Duplex key in Regedit.exe and export the selected branch to a .reg file. Edit this file and take out all the keys except the one for Speed&Duplex (leave the headers intact).

The next step is to create a cmdlines.bat file for running a registry key import out of a batch. Inside this batch you will need to execute Regedit and give it the full path, and in quotation marks put in the full path and file name of the .reg file you saved.

The last step is to create/or modify a sysprep.inf file with setup manager and place the cmdlines.txt file into the Run Once section and save it. To verify, open the sysprep.inf file and look to make sure it's under the [GUIRunOnce] section.

Run sysprep and Ghost this image then bring it down to another machine of the same model. When you login for the first time as any user(like the local admin) before the desktop appears a dos window will popup running the batch file with the registry patch. Another window will appear asking if you wish to import the file into the registry. Hit yes and OK to the conformation box and you’re in flint! The NIC will now be at 100Mbps/Full Duplex. The boxes will disappear and the desktop will take its place.

The .reg file will work only on an image that is deployed for the exact same model computer with the exactly the same hardware. If you have different model computers, you will need to find this setting in the registry and save it to a .reg file for every model. Some NIC models name this setting differently (my Negear card calls it NetworkMedia) the process does not change from model to model though.

I will attach some examples later to show the process better.

Edited October 1, 2005 by Keskauko