Windows 7 Cloning w/ Dell

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Cmustang87

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For my company I need to figure a way to get an image created of a Windows 7 machine and clone it tother identical systems. We are currently using Optiplex 780's (Don't think this matters much).

We will be purchasing each computer with Windows 7 Profession 32 Bit edition, but we want to streamline everything. Currently we are ordering machines with Windows XP Pro and using a NetBook disk and getting the ghost images from a "Ghost" server if you will. But this isn't working with Windows 7.

I have the image created, and tried moving it to another computer using identical hardware. But when it tries to boot, I get a repair boot option and it also fails to repair the boot. I also read that it's possible my version of Ghost will not work with Windows 7, and I came across MDT 2010 - MDT 2010 from Technet. Is this the software that will allow me to do this?

Please keep in mind, all machines will have a Win 7 Pro 32bit COA on the box.
 
If you have SCCM in your environment, use OSD to deploy your images.

If you do not, then use MDT. You'll need a 2003/2008 server to host WDS, but it will be very easy to deploy once you have everything setup.
 
keep in mind that MDT does have a decent size learning curve and depending on the number of clients you have it may or may not be worth the effort. Though you can do some extremely neat stuff with it. If you are only doing a small handful of machines it might be better to stick to your current imaging solution and reading about sysprep and how windows 7 uses the new system reserved partition.
 
We are a small business that does IT solutions for other companies. This isn't really internal. We are in the testing phase. We deploy servers to each company that signs contracts with us and also their workstations. So on average, it's usually 1 server and about 12 workstations per location.

We don't have SCCM, and all we use now is going to be Server 2008. So it seems that MDT is going to be my best option. Any other thoughts?
 
Start playing with it, once you learn the ropes and get everything setup your deployments will be very quick and modular. Being able to separate drivers and applications from the os image will be very helpful in keeping things generic centrally.

A thing to keep in mind, for something like this to be worth while in your situation you would have to limit your deployments to something you do in house. ie. You get all of the new machines, image them, and then bring them over to the client. I say this because MDT has no way of handling remote sites. And personally, having to setup MDT at each location would be way more effort that it is worth.
 
We set the machines up in house anyway and we monitor and support the machines differently. All we need is a solution to image a Windows 7 box, and when new ones come in we can just bring thsoe snapshots into the new PCs and make sure they are ready to be set up in the office.
 
Quickest/easiest for you, it sounds like, is to build a bartPE thumb drive (4gb or smaller) and get Acronis so you can image XP/Vista/Win7.
BartPE is free, Acronis is under $100
Should take you less than an hour to build bartpe with your network drivers for all machine types you have , boot from the flash drive, open Acronis, map to \images share, restore image.
I just did it today with 6 new Inspiron 546 machines and Win 7 Pro 64bit, took ~8 min to pull down the image from my server
 
Do you know if I'm able to do any of these options without Volume Licensing?
 
dbwillis said:
Quickest/easiest for you, it sounds like, is to build a bartPE thumb drive (4gb or smaller) and get Acronis so you can image XP/Vista/Win7.
BartPE is free, Acronis is under $100
Should take you less than an hour to build bartpe with your network drivers for all machine types you have , boot from the flash drive, open Acronis, map to \images share, restore image.
I just did it today with 6 new Inspiron 546 machines and Win 7 Pro 64bit, took ~8 min to pull down the image from my server
Click to expand...

Yeah, I guess with a decent network & the small number of machines needed, you don't really need to worry about things like multicast.
 
Cmustang87 said:
Do you know if I'm able to do any of these options without Volume Licensing?
Click to expand...

IANAL... But last time I checked, MS volume licenses were technically required to image a PC for redeployment. (Since I am a volume license customer, I haven't bothered to look at the OEM license in awhile... :) )

Maybe that's changed with Win7.?
 
Cmustang87 said:
Do you know if I'm able to do any of these options without Volume Licensing?
Click to expand...

Yes, If you sysprep your image without specifying a product key in the answer file it will prompt for one during the OOBE setup phase.
 
Its decent enough, most importantly it shows you how to use audit mode and how the default profile can be copied. I personally would not use the method of activation he is using as the key is stored in the clear, even though he is taking steps to delete the sysprep file after the fact, he is missing a few locations the files gets copied to. But in your case you wouldn't want that anyway. He also has a redundant step, the LocalAccounts section is not needed as the administrator account is always created by default and is always added the the administators group.

You can follow this guide, but keep in mind there are alot of things you may not need or may want to add. For example, since you do not have a volume license you would want to remove the autologon and FirstLogonCommands sections as in the this guide the only thing they are used for is to activate windows. There are ALOT of options when it comes to the sysprep answer file. Thats why it has its own GUI editor hehe.
 
xenios said:
Yes, If you sysprep your image without specifying a product key in the answer file it will prompt for one during the OOBE setup phase.
Click to expand...

Since the OP states these are all Dells, I don't see what is the issue re-deploying SLP installations. Use the SLP Key + certificate and you will not have to enter indidual product keys into the systems and also won't have issues with activation or genuineness. This is well documented.

The only thing you need to manually control is that you do not deploy a Windows image to a machine that was not licensed for that software.
 
Do you have any documentation on this? I only work with volume licenses so I have not tried this. Though I dont see a way of doing this other than copying the original image. I dont see microsoft letting you use a process that intended for OEMs. Also, having to clean up all the junk that comes with OEM installs, even just one, would make me throw shit.
 
We were able to get this finalized. We are using the Windows AIK, and installing Windows in unattended mode. My co-worker did most of the work, but the good news is we were able to do this without volume licensing.

The only thing is we need to enter the license keys in from the COA on each machine after we boot them up. Not a big problem, but just a longer process then we are used to.
 
@xenios: Microsoft "lets" you do this. The tool is included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 "slmgr.vbs"

Ok now if you get the key that Dell use when they ship the machine, or even the key that is used when you install from the Dell Windows disc that does not prompt to enter a product key (use a key finder).... in addition to that find the file dell.xrm-ms and install it with the command e.g.: slmgr.vbs -ilc c:\dell.xrm-ms

If you have these 2 things you will not need to enter any key or do any activation as long as you deploy the image to a Dell pc. If you deploy to another major oem system the key can stay the same but you need the .xrm-ms certificate for that OEM. The certificates are the same in Windows Vista and Windows 7 the only thing that changes are the strings the OEM places in the BIOS for Windows Vista or Windows 7.
 
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