How to guides on deploying Windows XP WIM Images

[Ashinator]

Hi Guys,

I just wanted to let you guys know that I have posted 2 howto guides on my blog to share with yas. The first is "How to create a hardware independent sysprepped WIM image of Windows XP for deployment from Windows Deployment Services" and the second being "Setting up Windows Deployment Services for WIM image based network deployment of Windows XP on Windows Server 2003". I have learnt alot from these forums throughout many years of experimenting and working on optimsing a good way to deploy Windows XP. Anyway my blog address is http://ashleystechblog.blogspot.com/ so let me know what you think. I have them availible in word documents also in case you guys want to use/update them yourselves.

[andrew84uk]

This is a very nice guide you have there. Is it possible to deploy .wim images over CD/DVD?

Just asking just for the people who don't use WDS for offline image deployment. I know the hal could be a problem with offline images for different hardware, which is a difficult subject.

Great write up. I am sure someone will go through it soon enough and provide feedback.

[Ashinator]

Yes, It is possible to deploy .WIM images via CD/DVD. I used the same WIM image and just hacked a lil automation into a Win PE (Preinstallation Environment) DVD and added the .WIM image to the DVD. I will see if I have find my old work files and I will post what I find here.

The steps were something like this tho.

call diskpart.bat which used diskpart to format and create 20gb partition on the first hardrive and then create a partition for the rest of the drive.

call winpe.bat which basically used imagex to expand the image onto the drive

call reboot.bat which basically rebooted the computer and then it would boot into the sysprepped image we just deployed onto the hard drive.

[andrew84uk]

Yes, It is possible to deploy .WIM images via CD/DVD. I used the same WIM image and just hacked a lil automation into a Win PE (Preinstallation Environment) DVD and added the .WIM image to the DVD. I will see if I have find my old work files and I will post what I find here.

The steps were something like this tho.

call diskpart.bat which used diskpart to format and create 20gb partition on the first hardrive and then create a partition for the rest of the drive.

call winpe.bat which basically used imagex to expand the image onto the drive

call reboot.bat which basically rebooted the computer and then it would boot into the sysprepped image we just deployed onto the hard drive.

Brilliant, the news I wanted to hear. Hopefully you still have the work or some guides maybe the same as how you have in your first post. This would be great if you can deploy .wim's over CD/DVD via sysprep. Nt 100% sure how the hal change would work though from AMD/Intel systems ACPI/UP/MP e.t.c would work via this method though but I am sure some clever people would be able to post about sysprep and hals. Thanks pal.

[Ashinator]

In regards to changing the HAL. The way i did it was to install it onto a VM with one CPU.

I used MySysprep http://www.tsaysoft.com/mysysprep/. I use MySysprep to Sysprep the PC before reboot and capturing/making an image.

When it boots up MySysprep runs instead of normal Sysprep which changes HAL and installs the drivers before booting into Windows. I have not had any issues with regards to changing the HAL with MySysprep.

I have had issues with having faulty drivers so you need to constantly remove faulty drivers and replace them as you encounter problems. I have found Mass Storage Drivers to be the biggest problem which results in the 0x00000007B blue screen. I have also had alot of issues gettin bluetooth drivers to work. I can say that I have been able to use this method to deploy one image to multiple hardware setups with all drivers installed ready to boot via network and dvd. It requires alot of time, persistance and patience to create but hopefully using my guides it will simplify and streamline the process alot.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

[Rich_Weiss]

This looks great and very helpful. Thanks for sharing your efforts with us. However, I have a question regarding the Build_All.cmd, which calls the install_msd.cmd and install_network.cmd files. I do not seem to have the install_msd.cmd and install_network.cmd files, and I did not see where to get them, or how to create them from your WIM Imaging Tutorial 1.5. I must be missing something somewhere, and would be grateful if you would enlighten me. The best I can tell is that I should rename and use the Install_Drivers.cmd, copying one into the drivers/network folder and another into the drivers/msd folder.

[Ashinator]

Hi Rich_Weiss,

I believe you maybe refering to someone elses tutorial. If you do have any questions or need any help just let me know.

[panosarp]

Hello, thank you for these nice guides.

I have used a very similar method to build - capture my image, using virtual pc instead of vmware, the hal is already at acpi pc in virtual pc , used mass drivers from

driverspack and mysysprep.

So my image should work with computers that have acpi multi cpu hal thanks to mysysprep that will change the hal in the mini setup stage,

however when a multi cpu acpi boots from wds (i have used the boot.wim in vista dvd sp1 to make my boot image) my "universal" xp image is not shown in the

list because it shows only the hal compatible images.

I dot know if that hal detection and the filtering of the image list to show only the compatible ones is from the wds or the winpe environment in the boot.wim (from vista dvd).

Has anyone had that problem , can that hal detection be disabled so it can show all available images , even the incobatible ones?

Thank you in advance.

[Ashinator]

Hi Panosarp, In my Setting up Windows Deployment Services for WIM image based network deployment of Windows XP on Windows Server 2003 post. Have a look at this post http://www.midteq.co.uk/index.php?option=c...8&Itemid=68 it should be able to help you. Basically you have to hack the boot image for WDS so that it will force detect all booted PC with the same HAL and there for show all images. I had a similar problem and I'm pretty sure this is what fixed it. You can see how I did it in my guide in my Setting up Windows Deployment Services for WIM image based network deployment of Windows XP on Windows Server 2003 post at step 78 to step 84.

[panosarp]

Thank you very much Ashinator, that was exactly what i needed!

I should have read both guides before bothering this forumm, thank you.

[akajester]

Ashley, thanks for the great tutorial. One question. When I pxe boot to WDS and choose the "capture windows xp image", I get no C: drive in the dropdown. Typically this is due to a non sysprepped drive. I followed your instructions and used the MySysPrep utility to Seal the drive. Any ideas?

thanks again!

Edited June 2, 2009 by akajester

[Ashinator]

Hi akajester,

What you can do is open up a command prompt when you boot into WinPE and see if you can browse the C:\ drive and confirm it is the correct drive. The other thing you could do is open diskpart in the command prompt and then type list disk which will bring up a list of disks. If your drive is listed type in select disk 0 (the number which corelates with your disk) then type list partition and your system partition should be listed. For help with the diskpart commands try this link. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415.

If your disk is not showing up I am guessing that you will need to inject a mass storage driver into WinPE. I know the Intel SATA drives you need to do this for especially with laptops. You should be able to find out how to do it in my guide at http://ashleystechblog.blogspot.com/2009/0...t-services.html. Try steos 39 to 41. You will need to place your driver files in their before you do those steps tho. You may need to go back a few steps depending on how you did yours.

Anyway let me know how you go.

[akajester]

Hi akajester,

What you can do is open up a command prompt when you boot into WinPE and see if you can browse the C:\ drive and confirm it is the correct drive. The other thing you could do is open diskpart in the command prompt and then type list disk which will bring up a list of disks. If your drive is listed type in select disk 0 (the number which corelates with your disk) then type list partition and your system partition should be listed. For help with the diskpart commands try this link. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415.

If your disk is not showing up I am guessing that you will need to inject a mass storage driver into WinPE. I know the Intel SATA drives you need to do this for especially with laptops. You should be able to find out how to do it in my guide at http://ashleystechblog.blogspot.com/2009/0...t-services.html. Try steos 39 to 41. You will need to place your driver files in their before you do those steps tho. You may need to go back a few steps depending on how you did yours.

Anyway let me know how you go.

the original is a vmware machine. Shouldn't the winxp capture boot already have support for the vmware drives or will I still need to inject them? Thanks for the quick response. Again, the guide is excellent and must've taken a ton of time to put together. thanks,

-akajester

[Ashinator]

Can you open up the device manager on your VMware guest and tell me what the hard drive controller is? The other way to check is to open the settings of your VMware guest and click on hard drive and it should say whether it's IDE or SCSI. I think you maybe using a SCSI hard drive which isn't supported in the vanilla WinPE/WDS images.

[zeusabj]

Ashinator...

What can I say? *THANK YOU* you just have no idea how long I have been trolling the web for a *SIMPLE* step-by-step guide WITH SCREENSHOTS that just spells out how to create hardware independent sysprepped WIM images. I keep finding bits and pieces of the process but nothing that spells out the ENTIRE process for you completely from cradle to grave. You have no idea how much easier this will make things for me at work. I simply can't thank you enough for this.

YOU ROCK!