Imaging system

[Recka]

Hey all,

 

I was looking at a solution to make my workload more streamlined as I do a lot of re-installs for businesses. I was looking to see if anyone has experience just to be able to let me know if this would work. We use a variety of machines of different brands and models (HP, Dell and Lenovo mostly) and I was wondering if it's possible to do an image for Windows 8 and for Windows 7. Is there a way to do this where it won't run in to issues for different motherboards? The other issue I'm thinking is activation (especially with Win8 activation build in to the BIOS)

Anyone have any tips on this at all?

[Luc401]

Im guessing you will most likely run into windows activation problems definitely depending on the situation, that might be fun to deal with. I believe it also depends on which version of windows will allow you to image. Hopefully someone else can give some more detailed information. If you are restoring once you are in windows and you need to do abunch of pcs at once you might be able to make them all copy from and image over the network instead of using an external hard drive or what ever.

[Recka]

Activation was going to be the biggest issue I figured... From memory certain Windows 8 installers (no idea how it works with images) pull the pre-installed key from the BIOS which would be fine for all the 8 machines if I could get that working but the 7 ones where the key has been rubbed of or peeled off (because clients can be idiots) could be the biggest issue.

I was looking at getting this done at my old job but never had time. I was going to do it via ESXI/VSphere and have a VM with Win 8, Win 7, pro and home of both to do the updates that I need to do and image from those installs.

[obsidian1200]

Activation shouldn't really be an issue if you do it right and are ready to input the machine's unique license key with each installation. 

 

I've done this with Virtualbox and it works fairly well with a VM. A quick rundown of how I did it:

 

1. Create a virtual machine for whatever OS. I made the VM drives about 45GB to give room for the OS and updates. You'll want a larger drive if you intend on deploying additional software with your images.
2. Install the OS from an ISO. Do not input any activation code and plan on doing your work within the grace period before Windows starts bugging you for activation. You can re-arm the activation timer if you find you can't finish before that period expires. With Windows 8.1, you'll need to modify the ISO to allow for keyless installations.
3. Install your updates/software/common peripheral drivers as needed. DO NOT INSTALL THE VIRTUAL BOX ADD-ONS.
4. Using virtualbox, create a new virtual hard drive and mount it to the virtual machine. Mount your Windows Installation ISO and copy its contents to the empty hard drive after you formatted it. Go to the sources folder and find either install.esd and install.wim. Make note of which version is in the folder and delete it from the folder. You'll use this later.
5. When you're satisfied with the state of the OS and are ready to image it, open run and type in "Sysprep".
6. Step 5 opens a folder. Run the sysprep.exe and change system cleanup action from OOBE to System Audit mode. Leave generalize unchecked for now.
7. Press OK and let sysprep do it's work and reboot.
8. When the system is booted up again, it'll log you into the standard Administrator profile. Delete the profile you used to prepare the image and make any final changes you may need.
9. Run sysprep.exe again. This time make sure OOBE is the system cleanup action. Check generalize.
10. Click OK and let sysprep do its thing again.
11. When the system reboots, it'll boot back into the Windows setup screen again. This is normal.
12. Open command prompt using Shift+F10. Type shutdown /s /t 00 and the VM will close.
13. You'll need a Windows PE ISO at this point. I recommend Gandalf's Win8.1PE ISO for easier use (it's what I use), but you can use whatever environment you want for this as long as it's equipped with DISM (or ImageX for Vista). You can even use the 8.1 installation disk.
14. Boot into the PE ISO. From here, you need to figure out drive letters for the Windows OS and the Windows installation files. Once you have that figured out, move on to the next step.
15. Open command prompt as an administrator if you don't already have one open. 
16. THIS APPLIES TO WINDOWS 7 AND HIGHER, WINDOWS VISTA REQUIRES SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT IMAGING STEPS.
17. With your command prompt open, type in the following string. Here, C: represents your OS drive and K: represents the second hard drive. Name can be whatever you want, I'll use Windows for my example. Check your installation disk to see if K\Sources\ has install.wim or install.esd inside. Replace install.esd with install.wim if that's what's in the original disk. My 8.1 disk has install.esd and my 7 disk has install.wim.
18. dism /capture-image /ImageFile:K\sources\install.esd /CaptureDir:C:\ /Name:Windows 
19. The above string will proceed to create a new installation image in place of the one you deleted back in step 4. Once Dism is finished, exit the PE environment and set up your OS again to get back to a desktop.
20. This time install the virtualbox guest additions and use it's folder sharing feature to link a folder from your host machine to the VM. Copy the contents of that secondary hard drive to that folder.

After 20 steps, you're basically done, and just need to take the files and convert them into an ISO or make a bootable flash drive of them.

[Recka]

Will this work to image on to machines with varying hardware (different motherboards etc)? If so this is excellent! I'll have to try this out and hopefully it goes well

[obsidian1200]

Will this work to image on to machines with varying hardware (different motherboards etc)? If so this is excellent! I'll have to try this out and hopefully it goes well

 

I've used it for general installations on pretty much every brand of laptop and desktop for 7 and 8.1, never had an issue with compatibility as it's basically driverless save for what Windows installs by default. You just need to install your hardware specific drivers each time is all, and that's not a problem in most cases.

[Recka]

Well I'll be able to store the drivers on USBs without any issues. While we have a few models a 16GB USB should be fine...

 

My only issue is 8/8.1 machines being OEMs so the key is stored in the BIOS and not physically on the PC...

[obsidian1200]

Well I'll be able to store the drivers on USBs without any issues. While we have a few models a 16GB USB should be fine...

 

My only issue is 8/8.1 machines being OEMs so the key is stored in the BIOS and not physically on the PC...

 

Shouldn't be an issue there at all, Windows will pick up on that and automatically add it to the installation process. At least that's been my experience, I've only had 1 or 2 out of the some odd hundred I've done over the last 8 months give my an issue with an embedded Windows key but those had other issues, too.

 

Edit: If the installation process doesn't pick up on the key, it'll prompt you to manually enter it before starting the installation process. That's how the computer will tell you, basically, if the BIOS key is working. Make sure when you make your disk/USB that you don't have it set for keyless installation.

[Recka]

Cool, I'll take a loot in to it