How To Image, Sysprep and Deploy Windows 7 a Complete Guide – Using sysprep and Imagex

Getting Ready

• Install Windows 7 from scratch on to your test machine. DO NOT upgrade from Windows XP, this needs to be a fresh install.
• Customise Windows 7 with any software, security settings or general settings you wish. When you install from this image all the settings as well as user accounts will be installed by default.
• Install WAIK for 7/2008 on the test PC. Download from here (1.7GB).

Create WINPE Disk

• Right click command prompt run as admin

• Change to directory “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools”
• run command “copype x86 c:\winpe”

• run command “imagex /mountrw c:\winpe\winpe.wim 1 c:\winpe\mount”

• copy imagex.exe from “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe” to “c:\winpe\mount\windows\system32″

• Create wimscript.ini in “c:\winpe\mount\windows\system32″ with following inside

[ExclusionList]
ntfs.log
hiberfil.sys
pagefile.sys
"System Volume Information"
RECYCLER
Windows\CSC
[CompressionExclusionList]
*.mp3
*.zip
*.cab
\WINDOWS\inf\*.pnf

• Run Command “imagex.exe /unmount /commit c:\winpe\mount”

• Run Command “copy c:\winpe\winpe.wim c:\winpe\iso\sources\boot.wim /y”
• Run Command “oscdimg -n -h -bc:\winpe\etfsboot.com c:\winpe\iso c:\winpe\winpe.iso”

• This will create an ISO in c:\winpe\winpe.iso.
  Burn this and keep. Now we need to sysprep our machine.
  (You can remove WAIK and any files you don’t need, test your iso first!)

Sysprep Your Machine

• change to the folder “c:\windows\system32\sysprep\”

• run command “sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown”
• If you want to use run an unattended installation you can run the following command sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:unattend.xml(The unattend.xml will need to be in the sysprep folder). Check out theunattend.xml generator
• Sysprep will remove any unique information and reseal the OS. Then the system will shutdown

• Now boot the ISO we created previously and load into WinPE

Capture Image

• Once WinPE is booted you will be in a Command Prompt window
• Run Command “diskpart”
• Run Command “select disk 0″
• Run Command “list volume”
• Note the letter of the drive you are imaging. C:\ in WinPE is set as the running OS not as the internal HDD
• Run Command “exit”
• Run Command “imagex /capture d:\ d:\install.wim “My Windows partition”" where d:\ is the drive you are copying
• This will create a file called install.wim in the root of your HDD. This is the custom image and will need to be added to the Windows 7 Install DVD

Create Installation Media

• You will probably need to install from USB as the image will probably be to large for a DVD. Here is a guide for Windows 7 USB Install
• overwrite install.wim to \sources on the windows 7 install source
• If you didn’t use the sysprep to include unattend.xml you can also add it directly to the root of the install media. You can easily Generate an unattend.xml here

Install Windows 7 as normal. Your changes will be installed along with Windows 7