Imaging

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walwalka

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The school district I work for approved the migration to windows 7 from XP. My job is to build and deploy the images across the network, I currently plan to use WDS to distribute the images. My question is what is the best way to create imagines for 8 to 10 different make and model computers? Is there a good way to use VMware or other software to build them and then just deploy or do I have to load windows on one of each piece of hardware and then deploy?
 
What type of licensing of 7 are you using? EES KMS/MAK/OEM?

Does each type of machine have different software being installed or does the 8 to 10 make and models run identical software?

What I do is install the OS, boot into Audit Mode, then run sysprep /shutdown with an unattended .xml. I create the unattended with WSIM. I then capture the disk as an image with the utility we use (you can use anything). I then pull the hard drives and just disk to disk clone the stack of drives and put them back into machines. The unattended file will take the machine on next boot and install the product key, create a local user account with password, and persist all driver installations. Because I sysprep the machines, each machine is basically setup as a new machine, so all machine SIDS are unique. I do this for all of the variants of the make and model.

If you have identical software configurations on each machine, you could use one image. The only difference is that you would need to integrate drivers into the installation media using something like RT7Lite, rather than installing the drivers in Audit mode. You would then just need to install the software you want then sysprep. The machines would boot up the first time and install the drivers from the integration process, so you could deploy that image on as many makes and models your licensed for.
 
bigdogchris said:
What type of licensing of 7 are you using? EES KMS/MAK/OEM?

Does each type of machine have different software being installed or does the 8 to 10 make and models run identical software?

What I do is install the OS, boot into Audit Mode, then run sysprep /shutdown with an unattended .xml. I create the unattended with WSIM. I then capture the disk as an image with the utility we use (you can use anything). I then pull the hard drives and just disk to disk clone the stack of drives and put them back into machines. The unattended file will take the machine on next boot and install the product key, create a local user account with password, and persist all driver installations. Because I sysprep the machines, each machine is basically setup as a new machine, so all machine SIDS are unique. I do this for all of the variants of the make and model.
Click to expand...

Pretty much how we do it. We use Ghost as our imaging platform, and image the machines over the network then run PC Mover (which works, but still not that great - looking for a replacement) to move the users settings and files over to the new machine. For migrations, we run PC Mover before to bring settings and stuff and store the file on the server. Then, make a backup image of the machine. Then, throw the Win7 image on it and run PC Mover to put settings back into Win7 and then finish with whatever else needs to be done that can't be automated. A bit of work for each machine, but it works. Just did 200 machines last week that way (16 hour days). Machines were perfect, although I feel that the process could be streamlined in some ways.
 
bigdogchris said:
What type of licensing of 7 are you using? EES KMS/MAK/OEM?

Does each type of machine have different software being installed or does the 8 to 10 make and models run identical software?

What I do is install the OS, boot into Audit Mode, then run sysprep /shutdown with an unattended .xml. I create the unattended with WSIM. I then capture the disk as an image with the utility we use (you can use anything). I then pull the hard drives and just disk to disk clone the stack of drives and put them back into machines. The unattended file will take the machine on next boot and install the product key, create a local user account with password, and persist all driver installations. Because I sysprep the machines, each machine is basically setup as a new machine, so all machine SIDS are unique. I do this for all of the variants of the make and model.

If you have identical software configurations on each machine, you could use one image. The only difference is that you would need to integrate drivers into the installation media using something like RT7Lite, rather than installing the drivers in Audit mode. You would then just need to install the software you want then sysprep. The machines would boot up the first time and install the drivers from the integration process, so you could deploy that image on as many makes and models your licensed for.
Click to expand...

Every machine will have identical software and what needs to be loaded after can be. There are two of us on this job so it shouldn't be too bad even though it's a lot of work.. I'm gonna try the RT7lite option on my library lab and see how that goes. It's 32 identical desktops and 4 odd balls, once I do that I can move on the the other 360 clients....

Edit: we are going to be using an EES license.
 
Last edited:
cyr0n_k0r said:
why are you making different images for each model?

Read:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Preparing-a-Hardware-Independent-Windows-7-Image/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee523217(WS.10).aspx
Click to expand...
That's why I asked. If some models are in different environments and have different software, they would want a different image. If not, then they can use one image with volume activation. They would just need to integrate drivers before installing the OS on the base machine.
 
Since you already have WDS, you might want to look into MDT - Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. MDT is a free task based deployment solution, so you can keep one thin image (just Windows, or include software that everyone needs like Adobe Reader) per architecture (x86 or x64), then use tasks to deploy specific software for different departments during the deployment process.
The driver store is also a great feature, as you can import all drivers for all the different models of computers, and MDT uses PnP information to install the proper drivers during the deployment.
MDT works in conjunction with WDS, so you can PXE boot and multicast using images and task sequences that are built in MDT.
In addition to the walk-through that cyr0n_k0r linked, there are many more articles and videos to help you with your Windows 7 deployments on the Deliver and Deploy page of the Springboard Series on TechNet.

Hope this helps,
David
Windows Outreach Team - IT Pro
 
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