1 Reply by infinityPlusOne

(6 replies, posted in Universal Imaging)

Thanks Ashley.

There were only a few things I found when following your instructions that I had modified slightly for my build.


1) For me, I didn't feel that it wasn't really necessary to setup shared folders in VMware Workstation when VMware Tools is installed.  I was simply dragging and dropping files onto the desktop and that was good enough.

2) To my surprise, using the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface PC HAL would not work on my variety of IBM and Lenovo desktops (would get reboots after imaging).  I simply stuck with the ACPI Uniprocessor PC HAL and used MySysprep and it worked fine.  I suspect this to be a VMware issue as I had previous built a universal image using a IBM desktop using the generic ACPI HAL and it had worked no problem.

3) I removed VMware Tools before capturing my image as there is no need to have it installed on real hardware.



Instead of using WinPE to capture an image, I simply stuck with what my work is already licensed for (and other staff are trained on using)... Ghost.

In case anyone else is interested, these were the sites I gleaned my knowledge from and used tools from:

Vernalex.com - Sysprep Guide
http://www.vernalex.com/guides/sysprep/index.shtml

Ashley’s Tech Blog – Hardware Independent Imaging Using VMware
http://ashleystechblog.blogspot.com/200 … ndent.html

Midteq – Creating a HAL Independent Windows XP Base Image
http://www.midteq.co.uk/index.php?optio … ;Itemid=68

Driverpacks.net Forum – Universal Imaging
http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewforum.php?id=30

Admin Bromo – Universal Imaging Using MySysprep
http://adminbromo.blogspot.com/2006/10/ … guide.html

Tsaysoft – MySysprep Tool
http://tsaysoft.com/mysysprep/

Vernalex.com – Sysprep Driver Scanner Tool
http://www.vernalex.com/tools/spdrvscn/index.shtml

Driverpacks.net – Driverpacks
http://www.driverpacks.net/

PCIDatabase.com – PCI Device Database
http://www.pcidatabase.com/index.php

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2 Reply by infinityPlusOne

(4 replies, posted in Universal Imaging)

Sorry I'm definitely not trying to do something such as circumvent WGA, but was simply wondering what others have done.  Surely others have encountered this problem with the Office suite in their universal images.

Anyway, thanks for the tip OverFlow.  I'll look into your suggestion further.

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3 Reply by infinityPlusOne

(6 replies, posted in Universal Imaging)

Thanks... Your blog was a good resource when I was building my VMware-based Universal Image.

Kudos!

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4 Topic by infinityPlusOne

(4 replies, posted in Universal Imaging)

Hello,

Well, I've finally accomplished creating a universal image using VMware to get Windows XP SP2 and our base apps install on all models of PC we use at my work (hooray!).  Now I'm doing in the process of fixing a few bugs with the image.  One that sticks out is that now is that the first time I launch an Office XP app (MS Word, for example) it now prompts me to activate the product.  We have volume licensing for Office XP here.  The Activation Wizard pops up, I click next, it locates the source network drive where we have placed the Office installation files, and then it is fine.  Before when I was creating machine-specific images, I did not experience this.  I understand the cause is that when you install Office and activate it for the first time, it generates a hardware specific ID and ties it to that copy of Office.  Now that the software is moved to completely different hardware, that hardware ID no longer matches and thus I get prompted to activate.

What I'm wondering is if there is any way to either disable this prompt, or automate the activation process?

Have any of you had any experience with this issue?

Thanks,

Phil

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