Hello,

A long time back I was a regular visitor to these forums. With lots of help, I managed to create an unattended Windows XP installation for all of my companies different PC hardware, using WINNT.SIF and lots of drivers!

We used this disk to install the various different builds of PC, and then SYSPrepped them and took an image. There was a different image for each type of PC.

Now im wondering if there is a way I can make a SysPrepped image which will install driver sets for any of the machines we have. So instead of having an image per machine, is it possible to have one image which installs the appropriate drivers for any of our possible machines??

Any pointers in the right direction would be great,

JT

There are many ways, but I think the best and very modern way is to:

1) Unattended

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from a Distribution share (with OS, tweaks, apps and drivers) is great for its modularization. I use it to install my master pc (a virtual machine). Sysprep is the last action before I capture the image.

2) Imaging

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Capture the image with Vista's WAIK ImageX from a BartPE-CD (ISO file that is also build from the Distribution Share)) to an Image folder on the Distribution share.

3) Deploy

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WIM-image to ANY machine (laptop, desktop...) by using ImageX from (PXE/CD/USB) using the same BartPE iso. I then run a tool that detects the HAL, massstorage, pnp drivers, and inject them+sysprep modifications into the image that has just been deployed but before you boot from it.

4) Boot

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the machine, it runs Setupcopyoeminf on the injected pnp drivers folder and then start mini-setup. Install extra apps from WPI or Group-policy.

5) Image Management

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I have 3 ways to alter the universal image:

* Run the pre-sysprepped master PC (virtual machine with undo disk option) install updates... and sysprep/recapture

* Rebuild master from modified unattended scripts and sysprep/recapture

* Use WAIK's WIM-filter to mount the WIM image, throw in some files/scrips, commit/unmount it.

Edited July 11, 200620 yr by Scrapple

Thats really great - thanks for the detailed reply. I'll look into that and see how I go.

3) Deploy

------------

WIM-image to ANY machine (laptop, desktop...) by using ImageX from (PXE/CD/USB) using the same BartPE iso. I then run a tool that detects the HAL, massstorage, pnp drivers, and inject them+sysprep modifications into the image that has just been deployed but before you boot from it.

Can you give us more details about this HW detection tool?

3) Deploy

------------

WIM-image to ANY machine (laptop, desktop...) by using ImageX from (PXE/CD/USB) using the same BartPE iso. I then run a tool that detects the HAL, massstorage, pnp drivers, and inject them+sysprep modifications into the image that has just been deployed but before you boot from it.

Can you give us more details about this HW detection tool?

It's devcon.exe from microsoft which is a command line version of device manager. You need to do some scripting work on top of it.

This idea and discussion is now getting started under the below thread.

Change the HAL and add mass storage drivers -How to combine existing P2V techniques for imaging

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=78535