Advice: Building a Windowss 7 Pro Image for SCCM Deployment
I'm looking at an environment that has been setup recently and was looking for some guidance as to the approach. We have SCCM 2007 R3 and the client hardware is principally HP. The Existing Process The first step is to build a VMware Workstation environmentThe Windows 7 ISO is then mounted and a Windows 7 VM is createdThe Windows 7 image is customised; services, files, registry, etc. (a lot of customisation)The Windows 7 VM is then sysprep'dFinally the VMDK file is mounted to a drive letter and ImageX used to capture that image to a new reference WIMThis is then copied to the network, then imported and configured in SCCM for deployment Personally I feel the process is a little too complex, my thoughts are: Why not use WAIK to create and customise a standard WIM image and apply the customisation through packages in the OS deployment task sequence? I've never even thought of resorting to a VM environment for creating reference WIMs, is this a standard approach?Will the VM approach have driver and other junk in the image, e.g. VMware Tools? With a WAIK image and a suitable SCCM driver package the image should be portable for any device type or model that we throw at it, we'd never need to use this VM approach again until a new OS or service pack revision is released? If the existing process is the best way forward then why not use the following methods? Why not use SCCM to create the task sequence media from a physical machine; if the NIC driver is in the WinPE image then the terminal image can be captured directly to the network saving messing about with VMs?Why capture all the customisation in the image? It may save time in the image deployment as it's all contained in the WIM but in terms of management I always tend to keep custom configuration in manageable packages which will be consistently deployed whoever is responsible for creating the reference image. It'll be interesting to hear what others thoughts are with regards this approach, thanks.
July 26th, 2012 3:04am

Personally - it is easier to use the Build and Capture of SCCM to get your images. Yes you will use VMWare because this will ensure the gold image is as driver clean as possible. Here is a link that is pretty easy to follow and works for both x86 and x64. Hope this helps. http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3102-build-and-capture-windows-7-sample-task-sequence/ After creating the clean gold imaged you can deploy it in a task sequence and use Driver Packages and WMI queries in order to make sure the only drivers getting installed on your hardware are relevent to the hardware, and not using the Auto Apply Drivers option. The Auto Apply Drivers is a little messy because it will take what it thinks is best for the hardware even if you have something that is better.
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July 26th, 2012 7:24am

Personally - it is easier to use the Build and Capture of SCCM to get your images. Yes you will use VMWare because this will ensure the gold image is as driver clean as possible. Here is a link that is pretty easy to follow and works for both x86 and x64. Hope this helps. http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3102-build-and-capture-windows-7-sample-task-sequence/ After creating the clean gold imaged you can deploy it in a task sequence and use Driver Packages and WMI queries in order to make sure the only drivers getting installed on your hardware are relevent to the hardware, and not using the Auto Apply Drivers option. The Auto Apply Drivers is a little messy because it will take what it thinks is best for the hardware even if you have something that is better.
July 26th, 2012 7:24am

in addition to the above excellent link i'd suggest you have a read of the following PowerPoint (please review the notes also) as well as this live meeting recording I did to explain it. Tips & Tricks PPT Content Deploying Windows 7 with Configuration Manager 2007 here's the recorded live meeting in full and if at all possible create your master images on Virtual hardware, there are just too many reasons not to. cheers niall Step by Step ConfigMgr 2007 Guides | Step by Step ConfigMgr 2012 Guides | I'm on Twitter > ncbrady
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July 26th, 2012 8:09am

in addition to the above excellent link i'd suggest you have a read of the following PowerPoint (please review the notes also) as well as this live meeting recording I did to explain it. Tips & Tricks PPT Content Deploying Windows 7 with Configuration Manager 2007 here's the recorded live meeting in full and if at all possible create your master images on Virtual hardware, there are just too many reasons not to. cheers niall Step by Step ConfigMgr 2007 Guides | Step by Step ConfigMgr 2012 Guides | I'm on Twitter > ncbrady
July 26th, 2012 8:09am

I strongly concur with Niall and RCCMG's suggestion of using a build and capture task sequence. Manually building your images is a waste of time and productivity and unless you are an intern, its well beneath anyone in IT -- simply put, manually doing anything in IT is anti-IT.Jason | http://blog.configmgrftw.com | Twitter @JasonSandys
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July 26th, 2012 9:19am

I've yet to find time to read through those articles but will do so either today or on Monday, thanks everyone! One aspect I'm keen to get some thoughts on is the client customisation. I've always tried to keep any OS images as 'vanilla' as possible and have the customisation overlayed with either software packages or through Group Policy, whichever is more appropriate. The reason I like that approach is that images don't need to be revisited as an when the configuration changes and patches or updates can be created for those machines out there. Manually applying registry and file 'tweaks' to me is very difficult to track and replicate each time a new build is commissioned.
July 28th, 2012 6:07am

To be honest I take the Flat OS like it would be out of the box and let GPO/Other Management software make changes to the system. I also use a mix of AD-Security Groups and Collections in order to install software that is needed for different departments. Only change I make to the OS during OSD is the start menu from the ugly bubble look to the classic look.
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July 28th, 2012 6:39am

Yep, no qualms or quarrels there. That's all part of automating the entire process to make it repeatable, easy to maintain, and consistent without manual manipulation.Jason | http://blog.configmgrftw.com | Twitter @JasonSandys
July 28th, 2012 10:21am

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