DriverPacks.net Forum - Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (OverFlow) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:50:37 +0000

you mean like this one...
http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=1682

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (eiresh) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:51:35 +0000

I really wish there was a cleaned up version of this that I could use. Any way we could start on a new thread with directions??

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (JakeLD) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:47:28 +0000

Kickarse is right a HAL issue won't show you any bsod. In fact, you will get a black screen.

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (stamandster) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:54:39 +0000

Not exactly. Mysysprep only helps with getting the proper HAL working on the machine. Nothing to do with BSODs because of incorrect mass storage drivers.

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (Registered) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:35:31 +0000

does that mean if using mysysprep program get used, then SysPrep Driver Scanner is no longer needed,

http://www.vernalex.com/tools/spdrvscn/

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (Echo_Platoon) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:48:53 +0000

kickarse wrote:

Your close Tmaniac.
OfflineSysprep is run after the image has been deployed to the machine. The deployed image has sysprep applied to it. At least this is from my understanding. You have to pxeboot or cd boot into a PE type environment (LiveXP, UBCD4WIN, Reatago, etc.) to run OfflineSysprep after the image has been layed.

kickarse, you could use OfflineSysPrep to completely SysPrep the machine. You would just use the OfflineSysPrep BartPE plugin and it will do everything for you according to the settings you specify. Below is a quote from the creator:

Use:
Â· For SysPrepping a Windows XP or 2003 32-bit partition that is hardware independent (yes, hardware independent!) while offline (yes, a non-booted Windows partition!)
Â· For SysPrepping a Windows XP or 2003 32-bit partition that is hardware independent while booted in Windows but with a partition/drive to sysprep attached and assigned a drive letter (ie a non-booted WinXP/2003 partition).
Â· You can use an unattended solution by locating sysprep.inf in the \userfiles\ directory of the OfflineSysPrep plugin or in the \userfiles\ folder of the Windows version.
Using OfflineSysPrep:
1. From 'Select Drive to SysPrep' options, select the XP/2003 partition/drive you want to sysprep (you are only presented with those that have boot.ini in root to cut down options);
2. From 'Select User Profile from Drive', select a user account;
3. Select a HAL update option from those listed;
4. Optionally select a path to be recursively scanned for inf drivers for pnp to detect. Fixed drive letters will be altered to %SystemDrive% (eg 'z:\sysprep\drivers' will be altered to '%SystemDrive%\sysprep\drivers') so path to be specified must be one which will be located on the offline system's %SystemDrive% or in other words the partition\drive that is undergoing sysprepping. File scanning recursion is performed by either SPDrvScn or SetupCopyOEMInf. SetupCopyOEMInf is used if the 'Advanced' option 'Complete OfflineSysPrep operations without running sysprep.exe' is selected. If sysprep is to run, SPDrvScn will be used. However, if it is desirable to not have sysprep itself perform the pnp (ie, 'PnP/Detect non-plug and play hardware' will not be selected from sysprep's interface), then select 'Use SetupCopyOEMInf (if not selecting sysprep pnp)' from the 'Advanced' options;
5. Optionally specify 'Advanced' options by clicking 'Advanced' and then the desired options from those listed;
6. Click 'Apply';
7. Now use SysPrep as usual, which should automatically start.

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (stamandster) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:10:07 +0000

Tmaniac wrote:

Hi folks,
I've been reading a lot about this subject lately. Primarily becouse i'm setting up a test environment with MS WDS to deploy universal XP images to computers with different hardware. (i'm a 'junior' system administrator and i want to automate and speed up re-installation of laptops/computers using WDS.
While reading through all these posts i started forming a small "todo" list for creating a standard/universal image that is hardware independend (with hal-detection).
Please tell me if i'm completely wrong about this (i probaply are)
- Install VM and create a Virtual drive
- make a clean XP install
- install software (Office, Virusscan, stuff like that)
- run updates
- run offlinesysprep
- integrate additional drivers from the driverpacks(?)
- run sysprep (is this needed after OSP?)
- boot using pxe-boot and create image (.wim) with WDS (this i tested with a dell optiplex 330, works great!)
am i thinking in the general 'good' direction here?
well, thanks in advance! Hope to learn a lot from you guys

Your close Tmaniac.

OfflineSysprep is run after the image has been deployed to the machine. The deployed image has sysprep applied to it. At least this is from my understanding. You have to pxeboot or cd boot into a PE type environment (LiveXP, UBCD4WIN, Reatago, etc.) to run OfflineSysprep after the image has been layed.

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (Tmaniac) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:15:57 +0000

Hi folks,

I've been reading a lot about this subject lately. Primarily becouse i'm setting up a test environment with MS WDS to deploy universal XP images to computers with different hardware. (i'm a 'junior' system administrator and i want to automate and speed up re-installation of laptops/computers using WDS.

While reading through all these posts i started forming a small "todo" list for creating a standard/universal image that is hardware independend (with hal-detection).
Please tell me if i'm completely wrong about this (i probaply are)
- Install VM and create a Virtual drive
- make a clean XP install
- install software (Office, Virusscan, stuff like that)
- run updates
- run offlinesysprep
- integrate additional drivers from the driverpacks(?)
- run sysprep (is this needed after OSP?)
- boot using pxe-boot and create image (.wim) with WDS (this i tested with a dell optiplex 330, works great!)

am i thinking in the general 'good' direction here?

well, thanks in advance! Hope to learn a lot from you guys

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (OverFlow) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:18:45 +0000

now i have at least one reason to get a newer version than 8.3...

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (DeTard) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:40:54 +0000

Wow, just found something very very cool for you Ghost users... Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 now supports using a VDMK file as your image file directly, though you cannot use Ghost Explorer to open it. But digging through the help file (yes, amazingly I'm a male IT person reading documentation, go figure), I found that there is a new switch that can be ran on GHOST32.EXE. If you use "/AD=" you can specify a VM disk directly and it'll show up in your list of disks to send an image from. This means no more booting from a DOS-mode ISO within VMWare Workstation, which means no more 100% non-throttled CPU usage. Testing it right now as we speak and so far I'm very impressed!!

Edit: I put this here as a response to the convo about using VMWare Converter, which didn't seem to work for me. This isn't really a Driverpacks topic, but it's big enough news for me, and not sure where else to say it.

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (OverFlow) — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:02:22 +0000

Thanks for you dedicated work and feedback guys!

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (unseen) — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:33:07 +0000

DeTard wrote:

unseen, I'm going to take back what I said about the dupes, I'm getting them too it seems. I'm going to keep my image the way it is now, but also add in the MassStorage drivers locally for use at Mini-Setup and see how that goes. Hopefully that resolves it. Not ideal in any way, but I'd rather see the computers using the proper driver rather than some compatibility driver. Will post again here with my results.

Phew at least I'm not going crackers!!! I've been having some annoying issues with dpinst but I think it's more likely to be down to a factor of it was Friday and I'd got tunnel vision trying to put the finishing touches to an urgent image update.. So weekend off (thank god) and back to it on Monday with a clear head methinks..

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (DeTard) — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:45:15 +0000

Well, it appears that the drivers for the ATI IDE controller don't want to be installed over the Standard IDE drivers. I'm going to try again using DPInst with the forced flag and with legacy mode and see if that'll let it update. It's not a signed driver, so the hardware update wizard sees the standard drivers as more suitable. *sigh* back at it again. Be back later when I get a chance.

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (DeTard) — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:46:15 +0000

unseen, I'm going to take back what I said about the dupes, I'm getting them too it seems. I'm going to keep my image the way it is now, but also add in the MassStorage drivers locally for use at Mini-Setup and see how that goes. Hopefully that resolves it. Not ideal in any way, but I'd rather see the computers using the proper driver rather than some compatibility driver. Will post again here with my results.

Re: Installing SysPrep with the DriverPacks

null@example.com (DeTard) — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:49:33 +0000

Yes, you do need the drivers added to your image at some point, but you don't need to integrate your original install of Windows to make it all work. Remember, I've been trying to find a good use for OfflineSysprep in my implementation (as it is, it was meant more for someone using WinPE, which I am not using), and the injection of HDC drivers makes it absolutely golden to me. Is it required for me to have my image work though? No, it's just relieving a BIG amount of work needed to maintain my images.

Before, I had to use a script to parse all the HDC INFs to get a list of paths and HWIDs. From this list, I would have to remove all the references to drivers that are for 2000 or 2003 and not for XP. Then I would have to remove all the duplicate HWIDs. Add on to that, some drivers cause problems with Sysprep (such as the V and V4 folders, and even more recently the SC folder containing the AMD64 driver which can easily be removed). All of this work is unneeded if you inject the drivers from OSP. This method also makes it so it doesn't install services that are unneeded and that can be installed by Windows later when it's required.

Just remember, install only what is needed for your VM to work ok, then update to your Standard IDE drivers, and then make a snapshot before executing commands like Sysprep and setting up your ROE. Typically, my snapshots are one from right after installing Windows, one from right after installing .NET (1.1 through 3.5 in my case, with reboots between each version) since that is kind of a critical point, and right before booting into OSP and injecting drivers. Then one from right before Sysprep (actually have command lines open with all the commands I'm about to run right there so all I have to do is hit Enter... leaves very little room for error that way and this is the most critical point of your whole image), and one after Sysprep shuts my VM down.

Don't worry, if you make the drivers available, either via SysprepMassStorage or via OSP injecting drivers, so long as you have Standard IDE set, you should be ok.