Windows 7 deployment help

[Terpfen]

Hi all. I'm having a difficult time getting Windows 7 deployment up and running at work. Here's my issue:

I'm working on a Windows 7 32-bit image of a Dell Optiplex 990. I create a local admin account named thsystem, install all the needed drivers, make the necessary customizations (shortcuts, etc), and install all of the needed software (Adobe Flash/Reader, Quicktime, Citrix, .NET 4.0, etc). I then drop my unattend.xml in the sysprep folder, run sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:unattend.xml, and then capture the image by booting off a USB drive with WinPE 3.1 and GImageX.

When the test PC that I built the image on reboots, it goes through the setup process, following the unattend.xml settings exactly. It's almost completely unattended except for the PC name (and the forced creation of an account that I delete; our users log in via their domain accounts). It works fantastic. But when I install that captured image on another Optiplex 990, even the test 990 I'm using, it gets stuck at the "Windows is starting services" screen and simply will progress past that screen at all, even though the test machine, on first reboot, worked just fine.

What am I doing wrong? What's going on here? I'm dedicating my weekend to this project, because we need to have 30 990s deployed hopefully by this Friday. At this rate we simply won't meet our goal, and I'm at wits' end.

Edit: Just as a means of troubleshooting, I formatted the hard drive through diskpart prior to installing the image. The image worked perfectly, and booted up just fine. But this raises another problem:

1. My unattend.xml already has commands to wipe the hard drive of all partitions and to create a single active NTFS partition labeled C. This is the exact configuration of the partition the reference image came from. (Suspecting that the 100MB boot partition that Windows 7 creates at setup may have been an issue, I used Diskpart through the command line to create the single image before installing Windows 7 from scratch.) So why do I have to manually format the hard drive through diskpart when unattend.xml should do it anyway?

2. The Optiplex 990s I intend to install this image on have 3 partitions: the 100MB boot partition created by Windows 7's setup, an OEM recovery partition, and the plain ol' C partition. I want to get rid of these and just install one single full partition as I've done with the image. If my unattend.xml settings aren't accomplishing this, will I have to manually do this for every single PC? Ugh.

 

[Demon10000]

I would create a batch file to do your install. The first part should call diskpart with a script that selects the disk and issues a clean command. Then you can repartition, format it, and the dump your Wim down to the disk.

As far as the actual problem... did you check the setup logs for any errors?

 

[Terpfen]

I would create a batch file to do your install. The first part should call diskpart with a script that selects the disk and issues a clean command. Then you can repartition, format it, and the dump your Wim down to the disk.

See, that's the thing. I've inserted reformat commands into the unattend.xml file, because the computers that are scheduled to be imaged have 3 partitions (1 system, 1 Windows, 1 OEM recovery) that need to be blown away and replaced with a single partition with the image installed. I shouldn't have to use a batch file OR diskpart. Sysprep should take care of this automatically.

Here's a pastebin link to the relevant portion of my unattend file.

As far as the actual problem... did you check the setup logs for any errors?

No, mainly because I thought of the formatting "solution" before I remembered to check the logs. I'd have to apply an image over the current (working) install, but I guess I don't have a choice on that one, especially now that I know of a "solution".

Still, I'd like to know why my format commands in unattend.xml have to be seemingly supplemented by my manually doing the exact same thing with diskpart.

 

[WinOutreach4]

You have not said how you are applying the image. I am guessing that you are using Gimagex to apply your image. The WinPE pass will not happen when you are applying an image in this manner. It would only work if you were using Windows Setup. So you will have to do the partition and format separately before applying the image.
Here is a step-by-step basic Windows deployment: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349348(WS.10).aspx. If you scroll down to Step 5, you will see this explained. There is also an example of how to use a script to run the disk partitioning and formatting steps before applying the image.

David
Windows Outreach Team – IT Pro
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