Windows XP slipstream suggestions? (for corporate IT use)

Cerulean

Cerulean

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Heya,

Getting tired of incoherence in our staging instructions for when a reload is required, so I've decided to take the initiative to produce a slipstreamed XP for staging our machines.

So far this is what I have on my checklist of integration/slipstreaming into the CD:

* Service Pack 3 (done)
* Latest DriverPacks
* Citrix, TempWorks, DocuWare, Norton AV (quicker to access this way after reinstalling XP / when restaging an existing machine)
* Company wallpaper and misc other; joined to domain, Administrator password set, setup limits removed (64MB, etc), ...

Is there anything else you would recommend that I integrate/slipstream besides DriverPacks? Am I missing something? :? Thanks!

After all this, I am going to produce a Ghost image of a machine I fully stage with this disk, and then staging machines would be an extremely quick process.
 
I think you might mean something more like Sysprep, instead of slipstreamed. I did this when XP was our production OS for several systems. The image was loaded with all our necessary apps and up-to-date security patches. I also put a folder on C called Drivers, and had a folder in there for each of our hardware models. Once I loaded up the drivers, the system was ready to be joined to the domain, and handed over to the user.
 
That is all we really have on our XP slipstreams at this company. (Which will not be named as I'm just an intern. However it's a big company.) Is there any other potential software that can be put on? Do you have network shares for your tech team to install adobe, office, etc..?
 
I've personally used RVMi & nLite to build a slipstreamed disc for my workplace.

I usually do it in this order...

nLite
1. Drivers
2. Component removal
3. Unattended config
4. Tweaks
RVMi
5. Update packs (service packs, hotfixes & so forth)
6. Addon packs
7. ISO build

So far the disc I built works great & has everything my workplace needed for 3 workstations. I built a seperate apps disc with a bunch of silent installers that so I could keep the OS disc less cluttered. I might build in the apps later on though.
 
I like using the most recent security update packs too. Makes updating the OS a lot faster. Just integrate this as an add-on and it will include all of the post SP3 security patches.
 
If your company is of decent size, see the light and drop nlight and ghost for sysprep and wds/mdt/sccm.
 
Sorry for being a bit stupid, but where can I find manual downloads of the updates that come after Service Pack 3? :(
 
http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=25 <-- 2 update packs at the top of the page

Either update pack works great but I highly recommend that you integrate them with RVMi over nLite. RVMi does a way better job at integration of update & addon packs.

Edit: Both update packs are updated monthly due to Microsoft's monthly release schedule for security & feature updates.
 
Cerulean said:
Heya,

Getting tired of incoherence in our staging instructions for when a reload is required, so I've decided to take the initiative to produce a slipstreamed XP for staging our machines.

So far this is what I have on my checklist of integration/slipstreaming into the CD:

* Service Pack 3 (done)
* Latest DriverPacks
* Citrix, TempWorks, DocuWare, Norton AV (quicker to access this way after reinstalling XP / when restaging an existing machine)
* Company wallpaper and misc other; joined to domain, Administrator password set, setup limits removed (64MB, etc), ...

Is there anything else you would recommend that I integrate/slipstream besides DriverPacks? Am I missing something? :? Thanks!

After all this, I am going to produce a Ghost image of a machine I fully stage with this disk, and then staging machines would be an extremely quick process.
Click to expand...

At my company we include the following on our base image:
  • SP3 + All Updates
  • Adobe Reader
  • Adobe Flash
  • MS Office 2003
  • Citrix Client
  • Oracle Client
  • bginfo (Sysinternals)
  • Various tweaks

Antivirus is not included on the image because we use a managed version of Symantec Endpoint Protection and the machines get added to the management console based on MAC address.

Drivers are also not included.

I would not join the domain on your image. If you ghost the PC every subsequent PC will try to join the domain with an identical machine name and potentially cause problems. Also I'm not a fan of having any group policies applied to my image.

If your company does a high volume of refreshes I would recommend purchasing a deployment server and load with Altiris Deployment Server. This allows me to PXE boot a machine out of the box and choose which image I would like to place on it (We have ~20 different images). Altiris will recognize what model of PC it's imaging and inject the appropriate drivers after the image process. Using this method I can personally push out roughly 100 new PCs a week.

We are currently working on pushing Windows 7 x64 with Office 2010 Professional. The process is almost exactly the same.
 
I usually integrate all drivers for each system within the network for both Server 2003 R2, 2008 R2, & XP. I find that it can alleviate a bit of headaches if the Windows installer has problems understanding what hardware the system has.
 
So what exactly does sysprep do and how would it be useful? :?

Also, this is what I would like to do:

[A] Integrate DriverPacks
Integrate "http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=25 <-- 2 update packs at the top of the page"
[C] Use nLite to rid of all languages/keyboards except English/United States, remove install requirements, set Organization/Name, Skip OOBE, Turn off Hibernation, OptIn for DEP, set Administrator password, set Timezone, set Automatic Updates to "Download and install", use Windows Classic with Windows Classic style and Classic Start Menu, and use black background and classic style for Setup look
[D] Use specific/company wallpaper as default

I have nLite and RVMi, and a clean Windows XP Pro SP3 (from MSDN). In what order should I execute A B C and D? A has its own integrator and recommends to do as the very last step. B uses RVMi. C uses nLite. I have no idea how to do D. I am thinking that the correct order would be CDBA, right?

Of course, if I were to use sysgrep, I would have to burn another disc that continues off of the initial slipstream/modified setup disk, right? (That's okay -- just wanting to know and get a handle on this.)

EDIT: I am not sure whether to use QFE_UpdatePack or Onepiece or both. :(

EDIT2: So now I have these files: OnePiece_Windows_XP_Post-SP3_UpdatePack_v3.9.0_ENU.7z, XPSP3_QFE_UpdatePack_1.3.4_20100716.7z, RVMUpdatePackSP3_1.0.3.7z + RVMAddonsWGAN_1.8.31.9.7z
 
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Sysprep is microsoft's tool that allows you to "generalize" an existing installation so that it can be used in automated deployments. When you generalize the install all machine specific settings are reset so that when you apply the image on a new machine setup is rerun and new settings are applied for that computer.

So in your case you can install xp on a machine, get it how you want it, configure and run sysprep, and then capture the image. Once you apply the image the computer will boot into minisetup and will run though the automated steps you configure.

If you use this with MDT (free) or SCCM you gain an absolute shitload of flexibility and control. If you are imaging more than a handful of machines I would suggest getting rid of discs and using WDS (comes with all windows servers) or like i said before SCCM if you have decent volume.

Make no mistake, sysprep and to a much greater extent MDT and SCCM have a learning curve but in the end its totally worth it.

edit: here is an old overview of what sysprep is http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783215(WS.10).aspx . Things have changed, especially on the deployment side but this will give you a decent overview.
 
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Cerulean said:
So what exactly does sysprep do and how would it be useful? :?

Also, this is what I would like to do:

[A] Integrate DriverPacks
Integrate "http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=25 <-- 2 update packs at the top of the page"
[C] Use nLite to rid of all languages/keyboards except English/United States, remove install requirements, set Organization/Name, Skip OOBE, Turn off Hibernation, OptIn for DEP, set Administrator password, set Timezone, set Automatic Updates to "Download and install", use Windows Classic with Windows Classic style and Classic Start Menu, and use black background and classic style for Setup look
[D] Use specific/company wallpaper as default

I have nLite and RVMi, and a clean Windows XP Pro SP3 (from MSDN). In what order should I execute A B C and D? A has its own integrator and recommends to do as the very last step. B uses RVMi. C uses nLite. I have no idea how to do D. I am thinking that the correct order would be CDBA, right?

Of course, if I were to use sysgrep, I would have to burn another disc that continues off of the initial slipstream/modified setup disk, right? (That's okay -- just wanting to know and get a handle on this.)

EDIT: I am not sure whether to use QFE_UpdatePack or Onepiece or both. :(

EDIT2: So now I have these files: OnePiece_Windows_XP_Post-SP3_UpdatePack_v3.9.0_ENU.7z, XPSP3_QFE_UpdatePack_1.3.4_20100716.7z, RVMUpdatePackSP3_1.0.3.7z + RVMAddonsWGAN_1.8.31.9.7z
Click to expand...


You only should use 1 of the update packs... using both is a bad idea
 
xenios said:
Sysprep is microsoft's tool that allows you to "generalize" an existing installation so that it can be used in automated deployments. When you generalize the install all machine specific settings are reset so that when you apply the image on a new machine setup is rerun and new settings are applied for that computer.

So in your case you can install xp on a machine, get it how you want it, configure and run sysprep, and then capture the image. Once you apply the image the computer will boot into minisetup and will run though the automated steps you configure.

If you use this with MDT (free) or SCCM you gain an absolute shitload of flexibility and control. If you are imaging more than a handful of machines I would suggest getting rid of discs and using WDS (comes with all windows servers) or like i said before SCCM if you have decent volume.

Make no mistake, sysprep and to a much greater extent MDT and SCCM have a learning curve but in the end its totally worth it.

edit: here is an old overview of what sysprep is http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783215(WS.10).aspx . Things have changed, especially on the deployment side but this will give you a decent overview.
Click to expand...


I agree. I use SCCM's OSD to deploy here and it gives you a lot of power and flexibility and is a much better solution once you deal with more than a few PCs.

MDT is a good option though as well and I would suggest looking into that.

Minimum would be to sysprep the machine before you create an image though or you will have problems once you get the machines joined to the domain, it's a necessary step.
 
Guys,
Sorry to bring this thread from the dead, but I have a few quick questions...

1- Does anybody know where can I find a "post-sp3 update package" like the Onepiece for other languages, like PT-BR (Portuguese - Brazil).
2- Does anybody know if there are any similar projects for Windows Vista and 7? (update packages etc)

Thanks!
 
http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8247
That thread is about as good as it gets at RyanVM's forum

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/10571-Windows-7-RTM-Updates-Packs-x86-amp-x64 <- a bit outdated

Vista/Win7 integrator tool - http://www.msfn.org/board/stefanrtrs-win-integrator-t139748.html

It appears that most of the packs haven't been updated too well. Vista/7 driver packs are though...

http://driverpacks.net/driverpacks/windows/vista/x64
http://driverpacks.net/driverpacks/windows/vista/x86
 
Norkimo said:
Antivirus is not included on the image because we use a managed version of Symantec Endpoint Protection and the machines get added to the management console based on MAC address.
Click to expand...

You can still add SEP to the image. All you have to do is delete the hardware id registry key and another HWID xml file before you sysprep.
 
bigdogchris said:
I like using the most recent security update packs too. Makes updating the OS a lot faster. Just integrate this as an add-on and it will include all of the post SP3 security patches.
Click to expand...
Now I have one question: is it okay to integrate this after integrating OnePiece, or is this a definite "not okay"? :p

EDIT: I answered my own question almost. It probably isn't okay because they both contain post-SP3 stuff. ;\
 
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