Windows 7 Imaging using WinPE and scripts

[Guest jimmyca69]

Hi all

 

Am currently looking into the different procedures for imaging Windows 7 machines when our organisation rolls it out.

 

Currently we use Ghost and Ghostwalker to create (one for every different mobo) and deploy images using network boot disks.

 

I have a few questions regarding the basic creation of a custom image.

 

I initially created an answer file using Windows System Image Manager and created a WinPE 3.0 bootable USB.

 

Our builds are required to have 50gb for OS on C:\ and then whatever is left for a Data drive (D:\) so this was setup in the answer file along with the 200mb system partition that is needed for Windows 7. In these the order is 1 for system, 2 for windows and 3 for data.

 

I then installed Windows 7 enterprise with the Autounattend.xml on my usb drive and proceeded to build my image in the audit mode installing all apps needed, then ran sysprep set for oobe and generalize and then rebooted it, booting off the usb drive into WinPE and captured the image to a networked drive.

 

At this stage i have a win7image.wim file on my server and everything is fine, its the next stage i want the help with, my initial plan is to roll out Windows 7 manually with each technician having a bootable WinPE pen drive that they can go to a machine and plug it in, boot from it and it will automatically use diskpart to create the 3 partitions ready and then apply the wim file to the computer windows drive.

 

Its easy enough to do manually, and the diskpart aspect i have already got working using the /s command. I use the following in a text file

 

select disk 0

clean

create partition primary size=200

select partition 1

format fs=ntfs label="system"

assign letter=c

active

create partition primary size=50000

select partition 2

format fs=ntfs label="Windows"

assign letter=d

create partition primary

select partition 3

format fs=ntfs label="data"

assign letter=e

exit

 

So here is the first problem - this works fine on any machines with partitions already set but i have found some only have 1 partition and so in WinPE the D: or E: drive is the cd-rom and so the diskpart scripts fails to allocate the D: or the E: drive. So i have to manually change the drive letter for the CD-Rom to something obscure.

 

Is there a way of setting the cd-rom drive/drives (there may be 2 in some machines) letter in the WinPE setup so that it makes sure it doesnt conflict? i.e like in old autoexec.bat where you could set the drives in there?

 

My second problem is that i want to automate the whole process so that on the usb drive there is a script that will map the network drive, then run the diskpart process above and then apply the wim image to the Windows d:\ drive. For example a technician with usb drive will plug it in and then either manually run script.bat or I set it to run when WinPE starts and all will be done for him.

 

Problem i have found is that WinPE boots into x:\windows\system32 and not my pen drive root which contains imagex.exe and also where id want the script to be located. It also doesnt set a specific drive for the USB its always the next available drive so sometimes E sometimes F etc etc. When i try and replicate what the script will do (run imagex /apply command from x drive) i get errors saying imagex.exe is not valid etc when not in root of my pen drive.

 

Again can the WinPE setup be modified so it maps to the pen drive root rather than the x drive? this way i can run scripts all from that location rather than having to specify drive mappings.

 

Final question is with regards to mapping of network drives, if i want it all automated what do i need to add to the script for the part when i have to input username and password when mapping a drive?

 

For example i run net use p: \\myserver\folder and it prompts for username and password and id ideally like this automated.

 

Thanks

 

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