Hey guys, this is my first post so it might be totally out of line. I have been working on my own universal images for windows 7 x64 for some time. I recently came across sad2 (very nice work mr smarteepants).
I have tried both the sad2 tool and the method I use which involves pnputil and a forfiles script:
forfiles /p %1 /s /m *.inf /c "cmd /c pnputil -a @Path"
which I found here: http://deploymentbunny.com/2011/05/07/a … -forfiles/
I can't take credit for the script, but what I can take credit for is avoiding sysprep altogether. Basically when I build the master image to be deployed, I do it in a virtualbox, but the key is I change the IDE/sata controller driver to 'generic' before uploading the final image. This allows the image to initially boot on almost any system, then since almost all the drivers have been added to the windows driver store, it automatically finds and installs hardware on the first boot, including the specific driver for the controller installed. I realize this method isn't for everyone, and avoiding sysprep could potentially cause licensing issues, but I do not activate the master image, and my employer has a sitewide win7 enterprise license with domain keyserver, so it hasn't been an issue. According to a few things I've read, it's no longer necessary to change the sid when joining machines to a windows 2003 or higher domain, and I have not had any issues. Although, if you do wish to change the sid, (microsoft best practices, when using imaging tools such as ghost) then are tools that allow you to do so.
Anyway, I really like the idea of sad2, but my current method is great for my fit, I would however like a way combine the best of both worlds: to index the .7z driver packs while they are compressed, thereby leaving them in the image, but also allowing the windows driverstore to enumerate them and load drivers dynamically. This could aid in minimizing bloat, but also keeping the drivers there for universal deployment.
I am currently using clonezilla to deploy which generally works well, but doesn't dynamically resize ntfs partitions on efi systems, and is a bit tricky to usb boot the clonezilla client on a Mac.
We generally deploy on HP hardware, and so far driverspacks picks up about 93%, since newer hardware requires a few downloads here and there, for things like fingerprint readers, intel AMT hardware, usb 3.0 controllers, AMD/ATI integrated video controllers, etc.
Do you guys have any tips/recommendations/alternatives to my current deployment method?