Making Universal Images (NOT installation discs)

thank you for your response Mr. Smarty Pants.

http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=4849
This one explicitly states it does NOT bother with different HALs, which I need as we get some extremely old/weird computers pretty often. Otherwise, would this be the correct one? It seems pretty intimidating to a newbie as is, let alone with whatever additional steps I need to configure multiple HALs... but whatever, I've jumped head-first into more ridiculous things before I suppose.

http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=1682
This one might also be a possible choice? But once again, it doesn't cover how to setup multiple HALs... though it does point you in the right direction if you need to, I think.

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22064 (linked from http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=3312)
This one might be a good candidate, but it's explanation isn't detailed at all, and seems to assume you are experienced with sysprep and universal imaging, which I am not. It tells you what to do, but expects you to know how to do it.

Does anyone have advice on which would be the most efficient/effective method? I don't really have a problem with teaching myself from the ground up, but I'd like to at least narrow it down to one method to learn first. As well, if the appropriate method doesn't include multiple HALs, I would appreciate some pointers about where to find such information as well.

Again, thanks so much for any help

Last edited by Seizure (2010-11-25 09:15:07)

the ROI is just terrible with sysprep... I hope you can prove me wrong. Good luck!

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Hey, sorry for the double post, but I had a question. I know about using cmdlines.txt to run commands immediately after mini-setup (but conveniently, before user login), but is there a way to run commands immediately preceding the mini-setup phase? I've seen talk of factory mode, but based on the descriptions, it seems to be a special mode for configuring the image on a particular machine, and then you have to reseal again anyways. What I need is a way to run a .bat file at the first boot of the sysprepped image, but before mini-setup. Is that possible?

Also, so you guys know, so far, I've got my sysprep/image solution to a point where I can deploy the image to both intel and AMD machines; across any ACPI system, uni or multi (as far as I can tell, any computer we're likely to get is going to be ACPI); and from what I've seen so far, with only two drivers mission at most on any installation, usually unimportant ones like audio, modem, etc. It used to be that when we used our old images, or... a clean CD installation *shudder* we'd be missing nearly every one, including the ethernet and/or wireless! I will hopefully find a good system for getting me and my co-workers to collect the drivers it misses into our own third party pack.

I'll be showing off my setup, but I want to wait until it's done and completely tested first, so thanks to anybody who can help me answer my question. I still have a few kinks to work out, though I think I know what to do about them. It's just a slow process.

Last edited by Seizure (2010-12-14 04:30:37)

I appreciate your help, but I am not trying to create a CD solution. I am actually using hard drive images sealed with Sysprep. However, your idea to insert a "dummy" boot loader, execute the needed scripts, and then hand the system over to Windows sounds like what I will need to do.

Now, my only issue there is that I need (want) a solution where I won't need separate partitions. Is there any way to get a DOS environment running from an NTFS partition without damaging the pre-existing Windows installation?

The theoretical situation I have in my head sees it like this: Install environment that will let me run .bat and .exe files. Reseal system. First boot up, DOS runs my scripts. Hand system over to Windows/mini-setup. At end up mini-setup, remove traces of alternate environment.

Which is why I need it to run off the same partition, you see. I can't really just have a useless partition (well, useless as far as out customers are concerned) just sitting there, and I really don't want to have to deal with adding re-partitioning sequences into the setup.

I tried looking all this up online, but didn't find anything promising so far. Thanks again for all the help guys!

Last edited by Seizure (2010-12-16 11:44:30)

Jeff is right, OfflineSysPrep is necessary, but is not ALL you need!  I myself have been using Ghosted (actually Clonezilla now as it is free and great) images for AGES now, all I do is:

    Do a full XP install from CD on the oldest, crustiest PC you can find and disable/remove as many devices as possible except for ethernet - the point here is to install as few drivers as possible, and make those generic so that the XP install disc will deal with them.  Any drivers except ethernet that do not install properly out of the box, ignore them and do not install them.
    **OPTIONAL** - I have also used VirtualBox for the above initial install, worked great as well!
    Install all Windows Updates
    I choose not to install apps since they will get outdated as well, but you may choose to do so now
    Use a SysPrep now (more on that in a sec) and make a sysprep.inf file with as many options as you see fit - I just set time zone and a flag to not keep the swap file the same size as when the install was done since machines of different specs will have different swap file sizes, and that's about it.  There are tons of guides on the answer file so Google will help there.  Reseal with your Sysprep and have the machine shut done when it is done, then make your image.

I purchased the nag-free MySysPrep tool and use it, the freebie is fine but I prefer no nags.  The difference is in how you use OfflineSysPrep - with the standard MS SysPrep that will not deal with the HAL switch so you have to with OfflineSysPrep, but MySysPrep handles that step for me on first boot so I can skip it with OfflineSysPrep.  Not a huge deal but I like it this way, it is the most universal I have found.  You will ALWAYS have some odd machine that may not be ACPI compliant or some damn Dell with a wacky BIOS that will not boot right, but trust me - my company has 5 locations, and we may do 40+ Windo0ws XP reloads a week - for the 10% of machines that you waste 20 minutes on with imaging and Bart, the other 90% you save HOURS just on the Windows Updates alone!!  I make new images every 4-6 months to keep up, and all I have to do there is reimage my ORIGINAL install (pre-SysPrep), update, and SysPrep!  Saves HOURS per machine and is well worth it.   (Plus SysPrep is easy, like 3 mouse clicks.....)

Last nugget for you, and shameless plug for me, I wrote a script that auto-launches my own driver installer which uses the DriverPacks, then whenm that is done the script deletes the driver cache, sets the IE start page to my site, and removes itself from the computer.  I place that script in All Users\Programs\Startup just prior to SysPrepping, so it runs first thing on the first boot and loads most of my drivers!    The driver installer is free and open source, check it out:
http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/topic … ceinstall/

Enjoy!
Ian

did you ever resolve this?

the company i work for has several restore images that we use for different PCs that we support, but with repairs and upgrades these images are often unusable as the drivers are incorrect or the hardware is completly diferent to what it is supposed to be.
A universal image with driverpacks rolled in would be perfect and would save me hours.

i have tried to create one using acronis universal restore and driverpacks without much success, modems, graphics and networks dont seem to install well although chipsets seem to be ok.

also i am struggling to get a solution to having the new restored system ask for its windows key. i can get an image to restore but only with a preinstalled key that then needs to be changed to the licenced one for that machine.

Any thoughts, ideas, help?

Thanks

Andy

PS not trying to hijack the thread just trying not to reinvent the wheel

Hi, I've been reading this forum for a few years now and this is my first post.

I wonder if I can replace the NTLDR file after using the "2nd Method" to the original XP file and it won't affect the operating system functions.

If anyone tried that I would like to know.
Thank you,
-Noam

If you refer to what I wrote, I think that after the Longhorn NTLDR has successfully identified the HAL and Kernel type AND Windows XP has assigned the proper machine type in device manager (after 1rst reboot) it is safe to revert back to the original. I´ve never felt the need to do so, but I see no harm about it.

Why should I replace the original Windows XP SP3 NTLDR with the original NTLDR from Windows Vista Beta 1 (aka Longhorn) because the longhorn NTLDR has automatic HAL and Kernel type detection, saving the trouble of choosing the correct HAL and Kernel image each time you deploy the image.

I was busy trying to add these driverpacks to my universal image, the last try was about the last week, anyway I managed to make an image that deploys in 7 minutes, has a size of 10.8Gb on disk, on first start, it automagically searches on "C:\D" for 1667 drivers to mach those in device manager, so, the only thing I had to do is wait 10 minutes for the image to "stabilize" itself, then run a batch file to erase the driver database and restore original DriverPath in registry, change computer name, add to domain, and finally put it on the assigned workplace.

As good as it sounds, I felt it a little "strange" mainly because it took about 4 minutes to search the driverpacks, only after that I could use the mouse and the keyboard, I think I´d rather keep my driverpack on a pen drive and write a batch file to do the job, besides, in the long run I think I´ll save more time....

Cheers !!!

PS: I wonder (kinda like the Philosoraptor LOL) what would happen if someone copies an entire user profile folder, and exports the registry keys, to another computer, will it work ?? I´m asking for trouble if I do this on a domain computer ?? If I manage to do this, I can automate backups... that´s another quest in this "one click fix" for my 629-computers-h*ll...

Glad to hear news about you guys !!!

Take care !!!

Last edited by colguetti (2011-07-17 12:08:20)

I already did that for you
http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=5336

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Hi guys and girls,

So I’m diving a little bit in to the world of Sysprep, Universal Imaging, and Driver Packs now. Last one and a half year i have used Altiris Deployment Solution for imaging computer classes at our high school. Also use Clonezilla livecd for some time now to backup my home desktop now. Also been looking into trying out FOGproject and possibly replace Altiris DS 6.9 with it. Have also installed FOGproject on a Fuduntu workstation here on my work PC. Dual booting to it to have some kind of a Linux test machine. Installed it but haven’t configured it yet. Left it as is for the time being. Wanted figure out some possibilities to make an Universal Image. Because we have now 3 (22-34-41) classrooms with same hardware. And one more classroom (22) with another older hardware. Then something like 25 administrative PC's with yet another hardware. And 15 laptops with another hardware + 5 with another hardware + another 5 with another hardware. So I often update the students WinXP image for the most part of the PC's, like 100. But the other day when I wanted to update image for another 22 classroom PC's. I was thinking I don’t even know anymore how much settings I have already changed in the updated image. How would I do that on the other image now. This way the idea to make an Universal Image was born.

I have used already made before me pretty slim/cut down Sysprep.inf answer file. And it works. As long as I don’t start jangling with different hardware. I mean, I am not that experienced yet in slipstreaming yet. But the thing is I always (view years ago already) found the idea of slipstreaming very interesting and wonderful. So I’m very interested and willing to learn and learning. Well I can be lazy sometimes. Or have not enough time. But in the end I’m willing. And a kind of able I guess. (Like one M$ guy (with a penguin t-shirt under his suit ^^ !) at a Win7 course said, to do something you have to be able and willing.)

So first thing I was thinking is, let’s just distribute the existing image I have, with all the programs and settings from the main machines, to the older machines. And then see if it works. Ok, it works. With a view drivers missing. So I assumed, if I install those missing drivers manually  sysprep and pull a new image from this. This image should theoretically work now on both hardware’s, where it comes originally from and where I last updated it. But no. It doesn’t. Well I can update the missing drivers and pull an image and this will be working image for this exactly model I last pulled it from. But it doesn’t work (automatically) on another hardware. Even if its originally coming from there. Because I was thinking the image contains the original drivers anyway, why not?

But the other day, when I distributed the latest image, that has already been used on 3 different hardware’s. With some issues off course. Like the hdaudbus.sys missing. And while I point it to the i386 directory that I added to the drivers folder on the C drive it is still missing. I created this drivers folder manually. Later added complete copy of drivers CD for every machine I have here to this Drivers folder on the C drive.

So the other day when I discovered the OemPnPDriversPath option for sysprep.inf and I was manually searching for drivers. Driver by driver and adding them to the drivers folder on the C drive. I came across some unknown device that I couldn’t find a driver for. Even after I installed manually all the drivers from the manufacturers website. I went searching for some drivers packs. Because I had already some DVD full of different drivers directories thrown together on this DVD. Some driver packs from some years ago. And if you use Device manager and let it search for the drivers automatically. You will get like 4-5 same drivers in different folders that it finds. So maybe even the same folders repeating on this old DVD. So when I went to search for some nice driver packs on the net. One wonderfully great tool I found was DRP.su. It solved my missing unknown driver issue on a laptop. But even more interesting part is, it brought me here. Because at their forums I discovered that their solution is actually is based on wonderful driver packs from around here. I actually wanted to find something like this site for a view years already.

So now that I discovered this wonderful site and forums. I discovered another tool. DriverPacks Base. I mean I already knew about slipstreaming and nLite for a view years already. But that’s not really what I’m on to right now. Haven’t used/learned nLite/slipstreaming yet. Because a little bit earlier I had maybe not enough knowledge/desire/need for it. And have been using Linux anyway, for the last view years. I’m also not thinking right now that I would have a lot of time/need to dive quite deep into slipstreaming. But actually had always some desire to make my own multi boot/install CD. Just the thing is if I’m getting into something, I’m getting into it for good. And I don’t think to dive very seriously deep into slip streaming right now. Although I might be already quite there a little bit.

So the next logical question for me is how do I use DriverPacks BASE with Sysprep?

That's the main question actually right now for me. Related to creating universal image. So i have googled around for a view days now. And read some basic guides here and there. And landed in this forum part finding a view sticky threads. Related to the question. I have already seen that it's a good idea to use some script to determine and change HAL's. But tried to get away without it. Although I see its necessary. So what do I do about that? Except getting some minor drivers not installed if I deploy image that I have now I get the hdaudbus.sys missing popup. What do I do about that? And also I’ve heard here, in this thread and somewhere else about KTD. What’s that?

For now I’ll be testing out this method, that seems to me to be quite simpler than the rest of the sticky ones here:
https://apps.education.ucsb.edu/wiki/SysPrep
certainly after following it ill figure some more things. But still you can provide me some answers or hints anytime.
I’m basically searching for a sysprep simple method where i can use Driver Packs/DriverPacks BASE to Universalize my XP image.

Thanks in advance,
Sincerely yours,
Nikolai

Ok, followed the guide that i linked in my post and it's busy sysprepping for a view hours already. Let's see what it will be in the end. If it ever finishes.