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Thank you kindly Sir...
Just hope you know what you could have let yourself in for! 
(Or is it more do I know what I've let myself in for?)
I've even added my shiny badge below Well I shall have a looksee tomorrow when I'm not looking at the world through fuzzy eyes... *bleh*
After a long absence (been working on other projects) I've been dragged back to sysprep imaging here at work, so if the request for testers is still open I'd like to volunteer! Give me something to do while I clean up the mess my "colleagues" have left the current images in *sigh*
Cheers
so where do we go from here...
M1 with KTD? makes the most sense IMHO.
Just thought of somthing that is just crazy enough to work... (I am a wild and crazy guy!)
create a master with two partitions.
set KTD to the second partion (IE D:\)
in this way you can have your cake and eat it too...PS with the average size of most HDD's these days a 1 gig partition will not be missed
Hmm we like crazy!
This sounds very much like the recovery partitions on Dell & HP. Which ISN'T a bad thing (TM) I actually quite like the idea and would love to sit down one day and make something similar but using my work image... Hmmm..... Damnit Mr overflow you've got me intrigued now!!!!
Bah... And I was going to have a quiet day today!!
Hi Krige,
I too am currently suffering from this same issue on a HP 6710b. What I'm going to try (once I get off the phone with HP on another matter) is to try the HP supplied drivers. I believe that HP (and others) tweak the generic Intel drivers which driverpacks installs to suit their needs. If this works I'll report back, but I believe a similar problem occurs with the "generic" Laptop graphic drivers.
Hows it going with the trials Detard?... or was M1 a test too far? 
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..
lol, Yes you are correct, it was the shade, though it's WC3, not WoW3
I'm not really sure why you are seeing the dupes in there. You said you were using VMWare, which I am using as well, so not sure where you are getting those from. The difference I guess is I'm not integrating the DriverPacks into my install, and I would suggest you don't either if you are using a Sysprepped image. That's not really needed as what you are planning on doing is using Sysprep to identify the basic devices and then have DPInst pick up after Mini-Setup to install all the remainders.
Hmm..... I've always thought you at least needed to have Mass Storage integrated into your XP master to cover sata? I know (and have done in the past with laptops) I could just enable IDE emulation (HP don't enable it as standard.. or at least didn't on the last batch of PCs I ordered) and that avoids the whole nasty bsods due to incorrect mass storage.
I've only recently (spurred on by yours and others successes with images) moved to building/testing with VM and I'm impressed if nothing else with the turn-around speed between making a new xp build disk (patching this or that) and then throwing it through a build process, h*ll of a lot quicker than burning (to RW or otherwise) and waiting for it to load on physical, plus our networking team have started embrassing it in a big way to downsize our server hardware so I've been able to throw oddity issues to them (and asked about VM > Ghost, they know it's possible but by using either a ghost boot disc or a PE disc and doing it that way, if there is a mystical way they'd love to know so they could do it themselves!)
What I have found lately is the amount of help/advice coming through here for the likes of us syspreppers has really opened my eyes and shown that there are easier ways to get the end result I want rather than kuldging it together as I've had to do in the past..
Right thats my warm cuddly moment done Back to destressing with GTA4.. 
lol.... and TOTALLY unrelated to anything, everytime I look at your username I think "I go unseen...." Guess the game where that is said repeatedly.
With some assistance from my younger brother (who has more time for stuff like that.. 
) I'd hazard a guess at "What does a shade say in WoW 3" alex for 100... 
Now before I go back to blowing cars up in GTA4 Any idea why I'd see duplicates of com ports & the IDE?? (Just wondering if anyone's seen it before?? or are we special )
Keep up the investigations Detard as when I get a minute (hahaha *ahem*) I'm going to try and follow your advice see what milage we get...
Rob
Hmm.. Methinks the servers picking on Syspreppers
nice to "see" you - glad your here (again)
Hey Jeff nice to be back, if somewhat briefly..
Yer I'm constantly lurking at the moment... The hospital I work at is pushing to get the usual huge projects underway but as per the norm no time for actual research "Just get it done" attitude *sigh* Ho hum.. So if I can help out where I can with testing etc....
Here's a thought to mull over mind..... Does anyone know if the point where DP_Install cmd can be made to run before the gui, perhaps at or during mini-setup?... Just as DeTard pointed you need to include Lan locally (for his network method to work) but I for one have my sysprep connect to our domain during the mini-setup which would obviously if it needed lan drivers then miss out completely (and some of my *ahem* colleagues wouldn't spot that simple error at least for a while *sigh* ) Like I said just a thought...
Anyway time for me to get back to the rock face...
Rob
JakeLD wrote:Tip Of the Day: Use VmWare to make your image and then convert the machine to your favorite image format (ex: Acronis) You can use VMWare Converter. So you don't need to boot in PE emuling an ISO and then take your image and save it to a network share.
Btw, I have been trying to figure out how to do this exactly for a few days now, and I have NO idea how this is even possible considering Converter doesn't support Ghost as an export format. How do I go about this?
Unfortunetly I concur with DeTard... I've been following this thread being a fellow sysprepper (when do we get the membership cards... I vote we give Overflow an honoury membership ) and have tried the VMWare convertor myself and can convert from formats TO VMware but not the other way (which can be done but you have to use Ghost and it's a real PITA!)
On another note... DeTard I've been trying your way of image building (as I like you used to build on physical machines before running sysprep) the steps I took were as follows:
XP Disc (RyanVM patches) & DP's integrated and set to Method 2 KTD (all drivers inc textmode) Some mods by NLite (I know about Nlite screwing up nlite now.. So I'll probably be using Ryans Integrator)
Build on VM, various installs generally .net/acrobat etc..
Change to Standard IDE
Run Sysprep -BMSD
Final changes, then Sysprep (adding a gui-runonce for DPInst running from C:)
Only problems seem to be (after ghosting) after reloading on a HP DC7800 SFF:
Duplication in Hardware Devices (IDE especially) and when DPInst failed to locate the KTD install (which could mean I've got the relationship between KTD & DPInst wrong)
Thanks
Rob
Hi,
Look at this post here it appears to be a problem with Avast. I use Symantec and it's never ID'd Driverpacks as a virus.
Hope that helps
Rob
Just thought I'd pop my head in the door briefly and say thanks to all the team, especially overflow for his advice with unattended installs. I'd like to say all went well with 'Beta 1' of my unattended... Unfortunately it didn't and I think I'd probably call it more an 'Alpha 1' release
I'm having a break at the moment from trying to bugfix an annoying problem that only occurs once the unattended is sysprep'd, essentially everything appears to work ok but just as minisetup fires up "c_20127.nls" is listed as missing. Various searches point at nlite being the cause, how well that's what I'm looking at now. Personally I think perhaps I've been a bit too vicious in the language removal so that's my first point of call. Ever encountered that one on your travels overflow or is this as my various searches seem to point to a 'sysprep' only glitch? I do like the various fixes listed even one by JakeLD that I'll experiment with too but the best one was to remove the "InstallFilePath" line from sysprep and that does at least make the error go away, but I'm not convinced it's fixed so I've got my bugspray and a heavy duty swatter and that will be this weeks job.
Hopefully if I can offer any help to others in a similar situation (No budget.. cobbled together hospital network... *ahem* oh wait wrong situation!)
PS. WPI is VERY good!!.. Well recommended Overflow. (Are you on commission for them... if not why not? ) Showed a few colleagues the "Beta" and they were very impressed... Even with it only installing 5 items so far (they're easily pleased!!! )
I wonder if this is similar to a problem I'm having with a HP 6710b with Intel 965GM graphics. It too won't detect the driver correctly. I put it down to another comment I saw on here recently about it possibly due to it being a widescreen display. I will get the relevant information (HWID/Log etc) once I'm back in front of that laptop.
Rob
If I remember right... (Can't find my copy on my home machine) We're still using 8.3 Corp as it's the last "decent" version before they went a little erm.. Nuts!!.. I keep getting phone calls asking if I'm going to upgrade anytime soon and the stock answer so far is "Yes I will.... When you put it back the way it was!" which usually gets a small chuckle from the Symantec sales droid..
Not that I have any major issues with it, well.... Apart from the newer versions aren't backwards compatible when it comes to image read/write (But I could be wrong there and doing them a disservice) again the old chestnut of time crops up, as is usual boss will ask for the latest bleeding edge image but won't give any time up to test/eval the new tools.. Well he wouldn't till now, I'm begining to see this flash issue as more of a blessing than a curse (I'll probably regret saying that at some point!!)..
Other imaging software we've used I've mentioned very briefly and thats landesk, and gawd it's a pig, it's slow, it's painfull to operate and it just seems a plain waste of time! No support whatsoever of multicasting, and woe betide anyone who try's to image 5 machines over it eep!
If I can find a quicker method (and we're doing it the hard way.. USB Booting UBCD4win > Ghost32 > Image off usb) and that takes (inc boot time of ubcd) 10minutes, but from your comments overflow I can see an extra 20 mins a box, but like you say it's a "master" build everytime, I'm begining to like the idea... You mention 75 apps... I'd say (rough count) 30 could be more but I doubt it.. Only trouble causes I can possibly see are Java and .net (required for 2 of our internal apps..)
Oh Overflow you mentioned you add updates via nLite that aren't in ryans, is that litterally just getting the list off ryans so far then downloading from MS Download centre the remainder?
Thanks again for your suggestions and comments I am taking them all on-board
Rob
By George I think he's got it!
Sysprep is such a PITA, I would just rather reload each time rather than fight with it, and i belive it results in a cleaner final product.
I still use Ryans OLD integrator and will wait for the beta to go gold before I use it in prodution (same with XP SP3).
for the latest updates you have to check on his rss feeds page. http://tracker.ryanvm.net/
For windows updates that are not yet out from RyanVM you can use nLite to add them (That is what I do)I have a script that I wrote and use for slipstreaming updates to office
http://www.msfn.org/board/Office-Patche … 89038.html
Oh Believe me... I got it after nearly 4hours on the phone to the us speaking with Adobe (who I have to say have been and still are very VERY helpful.. Take problems with their apps quite seriously!) Basically the problem that has pushed/shoved/spur'd me in this direction was a wonderous bug that meant flash worked as an administrator (so myself and other tech colleagues would always see it working) but log in as a user or even a power user and blamo.. No flash, doesn't even think it's installed! Big WHOOPS! But I did learn something.. NEVER EVER assume that no-one reporting a fault means there isn't one.. If I'd not become (and I'll admit to it!) content with the image I'd possibly have spotted this major cockup sooner. Now I can't fully point the finger at our image screwing up but initial tests I've done so far do hint at it, so hopefully I've learnt my big lesson for this year (famous last words! )
Sysprep IS a PITA... I readily admit it.. and when it breaks it generally breaks quite interestingly! But having hacked at it now for a few years (and with some recent input and advice from DriverPacks very own JakeLD) I'm still willing to let the old dog have it's day once I've got a new 'system' in place to build the clean masters (I could mention Landesk... but I'd never lower myself that far! ) to be fair once I've got the start of the disc running and then add to it, it will be interesting to see at some point the time difference, so currently to boot, image and get to first login I'd say it's currently around 10-15mins (using usb pendrives preloaded with the ghost image)
And thanks for the tip for Office!
PS almost every program you can think of has been added to WPI over the years.
You won't need to reinvent the wheel - somebody has already posted a method to automate the install of almost any progams you may need to install. If not they will fall over themselfs to help you...
Ahem with these I think I might... Doubt there has been much call for "Clinical Workstation" or "Bedman" but then again..... There are probably plenty of equally frustrated NHS techies so I shall investigate further!
Great question.
I would like to start out by saying I am a huge fan of ghost. I always Ghost every machine I repair before I touch it.
Ghost is great if you have bought 20 new machines that are identical. Ghost casting rocks!
It does!! We've been a big fan and user of ghost now for a few years thankfully like you mention on identical hardware, generally 1 image will service (over the course of a year) all new machines ordered (so could be Dell, HP, A N Other.. whom evers cheaper *sigh*)
I almost never use ghost to load machines anymore. Ghost images are HAL and HDD controller dependent. (unless you put a LOT of time / work into it)
I am of the mindset that if a machine has gone south and needs reloaded it probably also needs to have the CPU fan dusted and the cards and cables thumbed and power supply fan checked. That's just me... I like to be thorough. so since I'm there i just drop in a DVD and go to lunch.
This is why I believe I need to change our processes here where I work as I guess we've just been very VERY lucky in regards of ghost working or not. And we do spend a heck of a time now clearing machines out before handing them back, again thats a newish thing to some people here but when you've had a machine thats been on 24/7 for 6months it WILL clog up it's fans!!
I have creating UWXPCD (or DVD) down to a science and can spit one out in about 20 min or less. modifying that image for a specific domain or user name log-in only requires editing the winnt.sif file (in which case burning takes longer than the edit!)
basic lineup is
1st RyanVM integrator - for windows update slipstreaming
2nd nLite - for unattended XP settings
3rd DriverPacks (you are here
4th WPI (Windows Post Installer) For automating end user application installs like office and adobe.
5th Use nLite to create an ISO (which I left running after step two) .
Thats one thing I wanted to see what others did, in which order to process in.. Like I said so far I've experimented with DriverPacks and did look at Ryans but unless you download his beta update it's quite old (July 07 I think?) so was looking into other routes or waiting to see whether there were any major issues with Ryans beta before going down that route.
nLite I've got but not really played with, BUT I do see the potential for configuring the PC just how you want it which is so time consuming atm. WPI I haven't really looked at in detail yet as last time I looked at it the howto was quite confusing (nowt like the one here!!) plus some of our "specific" apps aren't bundled into MSIs yet so I've added that to my list of things to work on...
RIS and UWXPCD are not mutually exclusive.
Our Friend RogueSpear has a program that makes a RIS source using your UWXPCD.
That program is called AutoImage.
http://www.doitrightconsulting.net/forum/RIS is indispensable if you are not on site.
Since I have a fully unattended image setup with all drivers and applications my image will work on ANY machine with a boot ROM enabled NIC. What could be easier?
RogueSpears util was actually one of the things I found recently while begining to look into this that made me think about the RIS route.. But I can see where your going (and the advantage) of getting things working on DVD first then squirting the whole thing into RIS, therefore only having to really update one source (the dvd) at any one time.
The way I'm thinking (and tell me if I'm wrong) build up initially onto dvd (I already accept it'll be too large for CD) then once happy, possibly inject into RIS to allow network installs therefore we now have one off & odd specs covered. Also using the same method i can also resort back to ghost for mass install on identical kit but using the UWXPDVD or RIS to do the initial rollout & config.
Rob
Hopefully I've got this in the right area.... Just wanted to ask people their thoughts on the topic, but first a little history (might help see why I'm stuck!)..
For the last 18months or so (possibly longer but it's all begining to blur together!) I've been using 1 image that we kept updating (by ghosting before and after sysprep) Yes I can hear you cry 'no don't do it that way' etc etc.. But time and resources where non-existant.. In that time I did experiment with a new image that integrated the DP so that it wasn't so hardware dependant, but the old problem of time and resources cropped up and that plan went west.. Only problem is in the last month I've had a few users complaining about Flash Player not working and I've also had doubts and nagging thoughts about the image in general..
So much digging, hours spent on the phone with Adobe and I've come to the definite conclusion that it's the image, ok fine wonderful how to fix it... I could go back to doing it the long winded way Shiny XP disc, download drivers, updates, install software, sysprep and then ghost.. OR I'm now thinking what about RIS or an Ultimate XP installer disc. Slipstreaming updates/driverpacks into either install option therefore cutting image master building down from say a whole day to a few hours.. But the rub is which is better, which is easier to keep uptodate and which would possibly cope better if the penny-pinchers decide to change vendor from say HP to Dell ? I looked at RIS many moons ago and it "worked" but we never really looked at it or saw what potential it might have had.
So your opinions?? Is there a "best" way? Or is it better to perhaps look at a mix of packages each chosen for their task? The experiment I did with the DP loaded image gave a lot of in-sight into what can be done with time and (helpfully!) this adobe problem has somehow given me plenty of time to look into alternate ways to get to the solution.
As always, all advice greatly appreciated.
Rob
Jake you are DA MAN!....
Rolled back to the "ready to image" (thank the lord for vmware snapshots!) snipped the relevant info from your sysprep file and LO! The darned thing worked!!!! Made a bit of a bugger up on something else so I will have to go back to the initial step again tomorrow (Forgot to set it to autologon once.. Might try editing the sysprep file with ghost explorer but if not no big just another silly mistake cause as usual I'm being rushed to get everything done!!!).. But for now I'm happy that it worked!!!..
One last quick question.. With ROE set.. Will dpfnshr reboot the pc? I'm thinking of adding the landesk installer to the run once on the final finished article (this would then make it utterly idiot proof.. the kind of image we all want!) but thats something I'll play with later on I think..
So thanks again Jake.. Have yourself a nice big cold drink on me this halloween night!!
Rob
(Off to raid the kids goodie bags I think I deserve it! )
Tip of the day: Each time you update the Driverpack Storage in your image, you MUST verify all HWIDs and INF name under the sysprep MassStorage section, or your PC won't shutdown after the sysprep process which means there is a non existing HWID or a duplicated one. If you get the "Cannot update registry" message, I think it's because the path to at least one INF is incorrect.
2 INFs file using the same HWIDS cant coexist with syprep even if both INF have different names.
Hmmmm sounds like this could indeed be the issue i'm hitting. I vaguely remember reading something about an experimental mass storage pack that might eliminate this problem? Or is there a more simple fix? At the moment if I can support the windows generic mass storage and intel I think that would cover 99% of the PC's I'm trying to generate this image for.
As for verifying the names, I borrowed Chuds small script that scanned thru the D\M\ Folder and added the items to the end of the sysprep file. Unfortunetly after 5hrs processing (yes I've deleted a LOT of drivers that I think aren't needed now!) it still did the same thing. So i'm just trying it again with the pruned driverpack and will see if that has helped.
Thanks again for all your help Jake!
Rob
ACK!!!
What an idiot I am.... I've just realised while looking through my sysprep file that the extra intel Mass Sotrage I added were for driverpack 7.06 whereas I've got 7.09.2... Guess I know why it stopped now!!!... I'll go through the script now and change all the file location/name references and see if that remedies everything.
Rob
So far no it's been working like a charm. I installed 3 different PC this weekend with my universal image, it worked flawlessly.
Just what I wanted to hear!!.... Just wish the initial run had been successful here! Came back into work to find that the script had finished running, but hadn't forced a shutdown so windows was just sat at the desktop!... Just trying to think now when it bailed out. I think somewhere near the end of the mysysprep part of the script but I'm unsure. Would mass-storage drivers not located cause it to just "bail" or would they stick sysprep in a loop?
It's probably something VERY stupid and simple so with fresh eyes and lots of coffee I'm going to have another look today.
Rob
You are right but that represents probably less than 5% of the hardware. The best choice is to use it with the INI I posted.
If after using that ini and it removes the DP's.. Would there be any issues "later on in life" installing additional hardware? Would windows bitch (more than usual!) about the sudden disappearance?
Tip of the day: Instead of imaging prior to sysprep, with VMWare you can take a snapshot and lock it (you make sure it won't be overwrited). Snapshots is faster then restoring images with a PE CD in ISO format. I also suggest you use UBCD4Win as PE CD. It's the best PE project out there if you wish to restore universal image.
Ok now I'm concerned.. thats 2 things we do right! I've been using UBCD since early on v2 after banging my head too much making plain ol bart pe easier to use for some of my "collegues"
I wish I could emulate a 1GBs network card in vmware without installing VMWare tools, cause drivers transfer is kinda slow at 100 MBs. Maybe we could install the vmware tools, do the file transfer and when we are done uninstall the vmwaretools...I just want to make sure there's no traces on the image.
That's something I may test actually if the initial run through is successful.. (If it works I'll have more time to 'play' with other options) I managed today inbetween other service calls to finish up the mysysprep config and tweak my sysprep file to cope with all the intel hardware using the DP (pinching some parts from others attempts here) unfortunetly I ran out of time to see if my efforts were successful as after about 45mins of sysprep processing I had to leave, so tomorrow (today) i'll either return to a shut down vmware waiting to be ghosted OR something will have goofed and sysprep will have been running all night! I'll keep my fingers crossed and report back tomorrow.
Rob
I will give you the info ASAP rob, right now I'm at job. The good news is DSPFNSHR.exe is finally working. I will post the INI file in these forums. Just a quick tip, in VMWare make sure you are using an IDE disk driver, instead of SCSI. Don't install any kind of drivers even the vmware tools, you don't want to keep those in your image. Make sure you uninstall the SCSI and video driver before running sysprep or imaging. If its not done you will get BSOD.
Aha! I got something right then! (on the 2nd time round *ahem* 
)
I'd initially started the process off on one of our new ESX servers (someone in our network team loved virtualisation so much they spent waaay too much money on it!) but after much head scratching as to why certain things didn't want to work (usb mainly as I need the image to support smart card readers) that version was quickly canned and I moved over to the workstation and a pretty "naked" install with like you mentioned an ide drive & no vmtools.. I have to admit I wish I'd done imaging with vm MUCH sooner.. It's so much bloody easier!
Don't try anything else, it won't work. If you want to keep the drivers, just don't use DPsFnshr.exe.
Hmm.. Wouldn't not running the finisher stop parts of certain drivers being installed correctly?? Admittedly 95% of the hardware this image is being made for is all intel chipset & integrated gfx HP or Dell, but the remaining 5% will have either an ati or nvidia card due to requiring higher res gfx.
Thanks again for all your help JakeLD and of course everyone else who's experimenting with universal images as if it wasn't for you lot i'd still be doing this the hard way! lol
Rob
(edited for terrible spelling lol!)
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