I captured a Windows 7 image that has 3 partitions on it, the 100MB System Reserved, the Windows OS, and a third data partition. As a result, my captured WIM has 3 images inside of it, one for each partition. During my OSD, I want to retain the data partition. So I don't want to partition the disk. Instead, I have an "Apply Operating System Image" step in my task sequence that very specifically applies Image #2 from the captured WIM (the Windows OS partition), to a "Specific disk and partition", which is specified as Disk 0 Partition 2 (I doublechecked the original image and made sure that Disk 0, Paritition 2 is the Windows OS partition). My question is, should I add a second "Apply Operating System Image" step to my task sequence that applies the captured System Reserved partition to Partition 1 (the System Reserved partition) as well? Or can I just ignore that and let Windows deal with it?

I have played around with this a little bit. You can't use the "Apply Operating System Image" task to apply the System Reserved partition. ConfigMgr is specifically looking for a real OS in order for that step to work. Instead you can lay down the System Reserved partition using the "Apply Data Image" task instead. It seems to like that just fine. Still don't know if this is even necessary or not. Does anyone know enough about the System Reserved partition to know whether it is necessary to apply this as part of the re-imaging process?

Here is some information about the "system reserved" partition: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg441289.aspx No it's not necessary to apply the system reserved partition, if you not gonna use bitlocker.

I wouldn't mind using bitlocker. We've just never used it before, so I don't know too much about it. That link you included in your post says that System Reserve partition contains "startup files required by the BitLocker Drive Encryption feature". That insinuates that those files are only used to launch the BitLocker application. Meaning that they don't ever change once the feature is enabled perhaps? What I'm worried about is whether the BitLocker application keeps some kind of file allocation table, or something that points to files on the OS partition that could potentially change over time. If something in the System Reserve partition changes over time, then it would make sense that I should re-image that partition along with the OS partition. Otherwise I could end up with a fresh image of Windows on one partition working together with a System Reserve partition that has been modified by a previous installation of Windows.