Deployment « The Lazyadmin.com

Creating A Custom WinPE Disk

Prior to Windows 7 there weren’t a lot (err any) legal options to create your own Windows PE image. There was BartPE or Winternals ERD Commander but nothing you could do on your own. This changed when Windows 7 hit the street and you can now make your own WinPE image. With Windows PE you can boot a system into a pre-executable environment and make changes to the installed system. It is a very useful troubleshooting tool that can be made more useful by adding additional tools to the disk. There are a few components you need before you get started:

Windows 7 Automated Install Kit
Bootable USB Key

Once you have installed the Windows AIK launch Windows PE Tools Command Prompt, located under Start –> Program Files –> Windows AIK, with Administrative credentials. From there we need to run a few commands to copy and mount the WIM image

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Windows 7 Sysprep Options

Before capturing your Windows 7 image you need to Sysprep it. The Sysprep tool hasn’t changed but a reminder of the options is always nice. In Windows 7 the Sysprep files are located at:

%WINDIR%\System32\sysprep

You can double click the executable or use the command line to seal the system. The options available are:

/audit – This will restart the PC into audit mode which enables you to add applications, drivers, and test the system without making changes to the default user profile
/generalize – This will remove all SIDs, clear out any system restore points and clear the event logs as well as resetting the activation grace period.
/oobe – This will force the out of box experience upon system restart
/reboot – This will reboot the system once the Sysprep command is complete
/shutdown – This will shutdown the system once the Sysprep command is complete
/quiet – This will run
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Customizing Windows 7 Support Info

When you view the properties of your Windows 7 installation from an OEM install you might see some support information provided by the vendor. You can customize this for your own organization within the Windows image you deploy with some registry modifications.

Open a registry editor and drill down to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OEMInformation

There are a number of sub keys you can add here to include your own support information.

Custom Logo (120×120 BMP) – Create a new String called Logo and enter the path to the BMP as the value
Manufacturer Name – Create a new String called Manufacturer and enter the name as the value
Model Number – Create a new String called Model and enter the model number as the value
Support Hours – Create a new String called SupportHours and enter the hours as the value
Support Phone Number – Create a new String called SupportPhone and enter the phone number as
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Migrating KMS Servers

Key Management Service or KMS is an activation service available to volume license subscribers. The KMS feature is built into Windows 2008 and 2008 R2 and available as an addon for Windows Server 2003. When the time comes to upgrade/retire/migrate the server that is acting as your KMS host you will need to follow these steps in order to keep your client PCs activated (and your users happy).

Removing the KMS Host

Removing the host is a pretty straightforward process. To begin run the following command to uninstall your license keys:

slmgr.vbs –upk

Once that is complete you will need to install the default KMS key with the following command:

slmgr.vbs /ipk {Default KMS key]

The default KMS keys are different based on the OS that your KMS host is running on. Select the correct key from this list.

Windows 7 Professional – FJ82H-XT6CR-J8D7P-XQJJ2-GPDD4
Windows 7 Professional N – MRPKT-YTG23-K7D7T-X2JMM-QY7MG
Windows 7 Enterprise – 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH
Windows 7
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Configuring BitLocker Options

BitLocker is one of the hot new security features in Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions. It allows you to enable full volume encryption on the system drive (C:) to protect your data in case you lose your notebook. In order to use BitLocker you need a TPM 1.2 chip on the motherboard of the system. This is because the decryption key is stored on the TPM chip in order to facilitate on the fly decryption. There are a number of other features that can be configured for BitLocker via local or domain policies.

This first option allows us to enable backing up of the BitLocker key to Active Directory. In order to do this you need to extend your AD schema to support these extension. We will look at that in a future artilce.

If you do not use AD, or do not want to extend your

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BDD quick start

BDD 2007 is Microsoft’s new framework of tools to deploy Windows Vista and XP. The great thing about BDD 2007 is that you can put it in place now for your XP builds, and when you’re ready to start dropping Vista into your environment you’ll be ready with the best tools and methods! Now for the hard part: Building your BDD environment is a bit overwhelming the first time you do it. Here’s a quick guide to get started now!

Now before we even get the BDD Workbench console open, BDD has a lot of dependencies. Here are some direct links to download all the files you’ll need:

Before you install BDD:

1) MMC 3.0

2) .Net Framework 2.0

Once these updates are installed you can install BDD:

BDD Link

With

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