Eh, best way to install windows on identical machines?

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todlerix

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EDIT:Note: went with sysprep and ghost.

Extremly awesome combo. However the problem that im having is i want to install some drivers but have it still be sealed and ready to be shipped to customer.

Later in this post you will find CTRL+SHIFT+F3 it prompts me to agree to audit mode and then i accept and it just - goes away?

Any idea what to do, the screen stays the same





Sorry, hard to give it a title.

Basically I build systems, using.

MB: Gigabyte GA-M51 microatx am2
Processor: 3000 Sempron, 3500 Athlon, x2 3800
Ram: 512mb OCZ, 2x512mb OCZ
HD: 80gb SATA3.0 WD, 250gb SATA3.0 WD
Optical: Combo, DVD-RW
Case: Doesnt matter
PSU: Doesnt matter
OS: Windows XP Home OEM, Windows XP Pro OEM

I wish to increase the speed of software loading on these PCs, without doing anything wrong according to Microsoft. Currently I'm plopping in the disk, booting off cd, making partition, the typical install of windows. I then manually install drivers.

Please help~
 
Use nlite to integrate the drivers into the install disc, include the genuine disc with the PC and use the custom disc(One for Pro, one for Home) for the installs. The only thing you will have to do is enter the CD-Key and customer name, you can have partitioning all automatically taken care of. You can also have all the hot-fixes installed in one go if you follow the guides at msfn.org.
All completely legit.
 
nLite and integrate everything into one disk, but don't set it to silent install. Then make a few of those, install, and then include the original disks with the systems.
 
Build one with the OS of choice, get it installed, updated, apps installed, then sysprep it and then ghost it to machines that are going to be just like it.

Repeat the process for the other XP version your using.

When it boots up, itll ask for the PC name and a few other questions, ghosting an image onto a PC shouldnt take more than 15-20 minutes
 
dbwillis said:
Build one with the OS of choice, get it installed, updated, apps installed, then sysprep it and then ghost it to machines that are going to be just like it.

Repeat the process for the other XP version your using.

When it boots up, itll ask for the PC name and a few other questions, ghosting an image onto a PC shouldnt take more than 15-20 minutes
Click to expand...

I do this at work for making backups or restoring PC images if they become corrupted. I use Ghost 2003 and Netbootdisk.
 
Chernobyl1 said:
Using the same image (as in completed installation) on both machines you will end up with the same SID (Security IDentifier) on both machines which will prevent them networking in a workgroup environment.
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/NewSid.html

Use the free NewSID tool fix this.
Click to expand...

...hence why running sysprep does the trick.

No method is perfect, but the sysprep is probably the easiest way since it is only 2 computers. Sysprep doesn't always work on every program you want it to. Stuff like AVG Antivirus will corrupt itself because of sysprep. I'm sure there are plenty of other programs that may do the same.
 
todlerix said:
Where do i get sysprep, and what do i have to do to make sure everything is proper.. meaning microsoft wont be all over my nuts for it
Click to expand...


Should be on your completely legit and virgin WinXP CD. Should be under the tools folder or whatever. It's been awhile since I touched it. :cool:

I'd say read through the manual and see which one you have to do as far as using sysprep goes.


Seriously though, for just 2 computers, I would just do the manual install. The time it takes to go through the sysprep process and actually unpacking each computer because of sysprep is actually not worth it for just 2 computers. Now if your trying to do this because you need to learn how, then go right ahead, but don't expect to save any time at all. Even for 3 exact same computers, I'd toss a coin to decide which method was faster.
 
I recomend sysprep and true image. True image just seems to work better for me and is faster. If you are selling these things this is the way to go. With the drivers and sysprep on a image plus whatever you want to load that is free and doesn't need its own cd key you can blow down an image to a system in under 10 minutes easy. Go through the basic windows setup again and you can have the system up in like 20 minutes or so easy.

I use to do that when I built machines. Worked well. Last big project I had like that though was laptops for working on hyster forklifts and other big toys. Since all of them were owned by the dealership I got a volume licence from ms for them and sealed them so I can image them down in ghost in like 40 minutes and first boot it refinds the hardware(3 different panasonic notebooks used) and asks me the computer name. After I give it that we verify one of the hyster tools buy hooking the notebook into a forklift(this tool sucks balls and is a major reason for us reimaging notebooks) and give the unit back to the enduser. Works well. If we didn't already have a ghost 50 user license for them I would have run acronis as it is just so much faster and has some extra options I like.
 
Ghosting an image and using a SID tool to replace the SID on the new install is a very quick method.
 
Chernobyl1 said:
Ghosting an image and using a SID tool to replace the SID on the new install is a very quick method.
Click to expand...

The OP is bulding a few of these and prob selling them so he would need to change to cd key as well. For this the best way is just to seal the image and take care of both. A custom cd with the drivers already in it would work but would take more time.
 
Alright, so SysPrep is the ownage.

Took my usual 1-2hours of software down to 1:18seconds to clone!

So yea thx lots all.




However, what if my customer desires some extra hardware, like a controller card, or a video card? How do i load the drivers without going through the minisetup (eula agreement/product key/workground/usernames)?
 
todlerix said:
However, what if my customer desires some extra hardware, like a controller card, or a video card? How do i load the drivers without going through the minisetup (eula agreement/product key/workground/usernames)?
Click to expand...

Best way I would do this is have 2 images for each setup(2 for pro, 2 for home).

Image 1 for each would be a non-sealed image. Pretty much this one you have a key already in it and can load any extra software on or do the updates on the machine then just seal it when you are done.

Image 2 would be a normal image already sealed for you to load on a normal machine.

This way you can also load image 1 on a machine so you can do extra updates, seal it and make a new image 2 easy.
 
todlerix said:
However, what if my customer desires some extra hardware, like a controller card, or a video card? How do i load the drivers without going through the minisetup (eula agreement/product key/workground/usernames)?
Click to expand...


There are 2 ways to do this.

1. Bypass the mini setup by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-F3 at start up. This will boot the machine into windows and allow you to install the drivers for the new hardware. When you reboot the machine it will go back to the mini setup. (Someone correct me if I am wrong here. It has been a while since I have done this)

2. Install the drivers on all of the machines. You can use this feature to create 1 image for multiple machines with different hardware. You can add additional drivers through the sysprep.inf file and then copy them to your "master" computer.

Then all you would have to do is create one image for XP Home and one for XP Pro.

Hope this helps.
 
Bump

EDIT:Note: went with sysprep and ghost.

Extremly awesome combo. However the problem that im having is i want to install some drivers but have it still be sealed and ready to be shipped to customer.

Later in this post you will find CTRL+SHIFT+F3 it prompts me to agree to audit mode and then i accept and it just - goes away?

Any idea what to do, the screen stays the same
 
The easiest way to do this is to go through the mini-setup and add the drivers to the sysprep.inf file.

Here is some info on how to do that:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314479/

Read the "Sysprep Setup" area.

After adding the drivers to the master machine. Then re-run sysprep and roll-back the install. Then boot into ghost and re-image the machine. When the new image is pulled back down it should install the drivers that are necessary for the machine. For instance if you installed a "Creative Soundblaster" driver in Sysprep and the machine that you are installing to has a SIS sound card it will not install the creative driver. PNP should run and detect the proper driver for that card. If it cannot find the correct driver for the card then it will not install a driver and it will be an unknown device.

Hope this helps.
 
Take a look at this link.

It's for moving a windows install to another PC, but has a lot of sysprep links. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.
 
once someone orders a compy with some additional hardware that requires some extra drivers i'll try it out.

thx all
 
todlerix said:
once someone orders a compy with some additional hardware that requires some extra drivers i'll try it out.

thx all
Click to expand...
I keep a drivers folder on the DVD as well, so I can update anything I need to...such as Intel chipset drivers, Nvidia drivers, etc.
 
You shouldn't have to "update" any of the drivers. If they are packed into the image the PNP will pick them up and install the drivers best suited for the hardware. I do this using a Virtual machine. When I find new drivers that are not in my image, I copy them to my drivers folder and modify the sysprep.inf file to "point" to them. I have an image that I can litterally install on just about any machine without any problems.
 
ok so i have a 100gb maxtor drive that i have my windows xp image on.

i simply clone to new drive and sell the computer it rox sox.


So i can just make a folder called Drivers and put the drivers in there? what state do the drivers have to be in? I'm sorry i've been spoiled by xp and i've always just downlaoded and installed files with an installer most of the time..

So yea, lets says i want the computer to have ATI drivers and Nvidia drivers how would i make that happen? For example purposes...
 
If this is an image that's going to be deloyed on multiple computers, I just create a folder called Drivers on the C: drive, and put them in there. In this case, you'd be running Sysprep, and all the drivers would get wiped out anyway, so having them handy on the system volume to install is a time-saver. If this image is being deployed to the same computer (meaning it's meant as a backup), install the drivers and software you need, and then image it.
 
i have an image that gets deployed to multiple PCs, sometimes extra hardware is installed to these pcs
 
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