Cloning XP w/o using Sysprep

M

marty9876

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - February 2006
Joined
Jun 11, 2003
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Hello all,

Just wanted to check if you knew a way to clone XP with out using sysprep, due to various reasons. WIll be using XP Pro OEM sets. Changing the SID seems easy enough, I just can not figure out how to get the unique key in each since I want to clone after the source has been activated.

Thanks,

Marty
 
I'm sure it's possible, but why? Sysprep is designed just for this...
:confused:
 
For what reason don't you want to use sysprep?? With sysprep you can even setup an answer file that will fill in everything except the key for you.
 
For what I'm doing the images can change over time. I'd like the ability to "update" the master image and snap new ones as I go. My understanding with Sysprep and the XP OEM version is you can only run Sysprep three (3) times total on a given XP OEM baseline.

One Sysprep run the orginal time, leaving me 2 more runs for the life of XP in my enviroment.

Thanks,

Marty
 
1. That is incorrect. I have run sysprep at least 5 times on a single load, probably more, but AT LEAST 5.
2. With images, you don't want to update them that often, the whole point of an image is it's a clean load. After you "update" it a few times, it's not much different that a "used" OS load.
3. I would recommend you document, step-by-step, the process to create the image. Sysprep and deploy it. Update it once or twice, then rebuild the image from scratch after the third or so update.

Unfortunatly I can't just rebuild the image at my current job (not my call) and we have updated out image several times. I don't like the idea, I would rather rebuild it, but it hasn't caused us problems (yet). The end result is, I have syspreped the same load several times.

Do you have any documentation about the 3 sysprep limit? I have not heard/read anything about a limit on the number of times you can run it. Seeing how I have done this I'm very interested in some documentation (could help me convince the powers that be to rebuild).
 
Ok my bad. I think you can only reset the Windows Product Activation three times. No big deal.

How Sysprep Works with Windows Product Activation
In Windows XP Professional, Sysprep can reset Windows Product Activation a maximum of three times. When a computer running a disk image that was prepared with Sysprep is restarted, the activation timer is reset and the installation of Windows XP Professional is enabled with the full grace period for Windows Product Activation. After three resets, the activation timer is no longer reset. To prevent resets of the activation timer, run Sysprep from the command line, and include the -activated parameter and the -reseal parameter, as shown in the following example:

sysprep -activated -reseal

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prbc_cai_ztee.asp
 
Ahh, you should look at a VLA (volume license agreement), any company with more than a handful of machines should be buying licenses this way. There is no product activation with VLA, but it's good to know there is a switch to prevent this in sysprep.
 
Isn't the VLA for 1000+ units?

Thanks for all your input.

Marty
 
Yes, it's only WPA you can reset 3 times. (it's to keep people from getting around WPA by sysprepping every 30 days...)
 
Individuals at home can take advantage of VLA, I believe the minimum is 5 in one order. Check out newegg, I believe they sell it.
 
I think all VLA's are all upgrades, not a full version on the OS.

Marty
 
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