[Tripredacus]

Sorry, my original problem was due to attempting to run a generalized sysprep more than 3 times on one image, which evidently kills the image and the ReArm.

My current issue is that when I sysprep a machine with a Creative X-FI Xtreme PCI soundcard and WHQL signed drivers, and either go through the welcome or reboot into Audit mode, the driver is removed from the system.

What steps can I do in order to stop Sysprep from removing this driver?

This post has been edited by Tripredacus: 07 July 2008 - 01:39 PM

[dexter.inside]

Tripredacus, on Jul 7 2008, 09:47 PM, said:

What steps can I do in order to stop Sysprep from removing this driver?

I believe you have 2 alternatives: 1) try to mark it as persistent (via the persistence attribute) in System Image Manager from AIK, or 2) take Vista into mini-setup without running sysprep and make a script to clean the driver classes you want to generalize.

[Tripredacus]

Hmm... We downloaded a new driver and it now survives a generalize... except its software seems to have gone missing. When it reboots now, it says it needs to install software for the device...

[sp00f]

inject the drivers in the syspreped install.wim

[dexter.inside]

sp00f, on Jul 9 2008, 01:59 AM, said:

inject the drivers in the syspreped install.wim

Yes, yours gets scattered if you don't do that... crappy INFs most likely.

[sp00f]

dexter.inside, on Jul 9 2008, 08:42 AM, said:

sp00f, on Jul 9 2008, 01:59 AM, said:

inject the drivers in the syspreped install.wim

Yes, yours gets scattered if you don't do that... crappy INFs most likely.

??

[dexter.inside]

Driver makers generally don't bother writing a proper uninstallation procedure (as specified in the new DDK). Thus, sysprep may not properly remove some of the files. The driver may still be registered in the system after the generalization, but its files may have been deleted.

[cluberti]

Yes, I've been using hyper-V VMs to build my Vista images, and then injecting drivers to the WIM post-sysprep to solve this very problem with Realtek drivers. They don't survive sysprep, but work fine if injected afterwards.

[sp00f]

cluberti, on Jul 10 2008, 02:24 PM, said:

Yes, I've been using hyper-V VMs to build my Vista images, and then injecting drivers to the WIM post-sysprep to solve this very problem with Realtek drivers. They don't survive sysprep, but work fine if injected afterwards.

thats what im talking about

[dexter.inside]

What was I trying to point out here is that NOT all drivers work fine afterward. Fortunately, most of them do. Without proper testing that particular image to be done, I wouldn't jump directly on OEM-preinstalling and distributing PCs to end-users.

[Tripredacus]

Alright, a little update... I've had to rebuild the image a total of 5 times now. I also built the image on 3 different machines. We came to the conclusion that the software was interfering with Sysprep, so we elected to NOT install the Creative software and leave the installer on the desktop. This also means that we can't test to make sure each sound cards works unfortunately.

Because I kept running into the ReArm limit, I hosed 2 images because of this. The 3rd image failed epicly in a fashion I can't seem to understand, other than the source machine may have had a bad stick of RAM. What happened was the Master PC worked fine (other than it uninstalled the software and driver) and it was acceptable to management. So I uploaded it, and brought it down on 8 other PCs. But for some reason the image was incomplete, as other drivers were not installed, applications couldn't open properly, etc.

The Fourth image caused 3 different issues. 1) The computer wouldn't ever boot to the desktop after the first reboot, it would sit with the green/blue screen with the "please wait" at the bottom and the little donut spinning. I had 2 PCs do this and let them sit for 3 hours! 2) On the first reboot, it would get to the Please Wait screen and display a message box proclaiming "Windows suffered an incomplete or sudden restart" or something to that effect. It had the exclamation flag. And lastly 3) one booted to the Please Wait screen and displayed an exclamation about contacting Creative because their software failed to do something. In none of these situations was it possible to get to the Welcome (sysprep) screen.

So image five we decided to not install the software like I said. I haven't redeployed it yet but I am certain it will work. If it doesn't, well it will be next week so I don't care about it right now! The other thing I learned is that you can't append to a WIM with imagex and deploy a different image from within the same WIM at the same time.

[sp00f]

Quote

What was I trying to point out here is that NOT all drivers work fine afterward. Fortunately, most of them do. Without proper testing that particular image to be done, I wouldn't jump directly on OEM-preinstalling and distributing PCs to end-users

We tested lots of drivers , they never failed here.
maybe you are doing sommething wrong.

This post has been edited by sp00f: 13 July 2008 - 10:49 AM

[cluberti]

Well, it might be better for you and your techs to make factory images, that way you get a shot at installing drivers and software before the reseal - you could bring the image down, have a tech install the sound card drivers (and any other drivers that don't inject properly), then reseal the box.

Also, when you run your generalize pass, are you using the PersistentAllDeviceInstalls setting in the Microsoft-Windows-PnPSysprep section of your sysprep.inf? This is supposed to keep the device drivers from being whacked during the sysprep (regardless of whether or not it actually works with your drivers/software). Maybe you have.

In any case, in what you are seeing, a factory build is probably best for these machines and your techs.

[sp00f]

Maybe this helps :

http://www.ryanvm.ne...opic.php?t=6228

[dexter.inside]

sp00f, on Jul 13 2008, 07:48 PM, said:

We tested lots of drivers , they never failed here.
maybe you are doing sommething wrong.

Actually I am doing something wrong, I am bypassing msiexec and the TrustedInstaller in order to componentize my stuff (let's call it unorthodox slipstreaming). If VMware can do it, why can't I ?

Anyways, there are some pieces of software that break sysprep due to poor architectural vision, and that makes me very sad. The very reason for me to go over MS installers.

[Tripredacus]

I am also doing this differently than what you guys are talking about. I am not doing anything with the install.wim at all. We are not ready to deploy Vista in that manner. We will get there after we finish SP1 validation.

[Tripredacus]

I have acquired an additional X-Fi card and I am going to test to see if this issue happens with SP1 as well.