Recently I have been involved in using TPMfOSD to capture and deploy Windows 7 images. There is quite a bit of information available on the web and on IBM’s Info Center, but at times we found that there are certain areas that are not completed enough.
I have been working through the Devworks site with various people and thought I would also give back some information. Since this was too big for Devworks, I thought a blog would be best.
At a high level, here is what I did:
1. Importing Windows 7 DVD for Unattended Install
2. Preparing the OS Configuration for Unattended Install
3. Deploying the Unattended Install
4. Customizing Master Image
5. Executing sysprep
6. Capture Clone Image
7. Modifying the OS Configuration for Clone Install
8. Deploying the Cloned OS
For my environment, I am using VMware Workstation to create my profile. There are many advantages of using VMware rather than physical hardware such as:
1. The image does not contain any drivers for the physical hardware. Windows 7 can be installed on VMware with almost no extra drivers (depending on the vm hardware defined)
2. Simple and quick to restore an image with the snapshots rather than using OSD to capture the “Golden Master”
3. Multiple snapshots can be created to backup and restore during various stages
4. The restore of an image can be done to any system that has VMware installed, as long as the hardware is setup the same. So the VM image can be built on Lenovo/HP/Dell/etc hardware
When using VMware, I also add the setting bios.bootdelay=15000 to the .VMX file to allow time to press the F12 key or ESC for the boot menu.
Before starting on this, one big note is around the Built-in Administrator name that is used. When installing Windows 7, you are prompted to create an id that will be an administrator on the system. When this user is created, it will be added to the Administrators group and the Built-in administrator will be disabled. In order to get the Built-in administrator enabled, you need to set the Administrator name in the OS profile to “Administrator” (has to be this no matter what you want the id to actually be). For this example, I will be changing the Built-in administrator to “myadmin” and show how to make this will work.1. Importing Windows 7 DVD for Unattended Install
This was fairly simple. Just use the New Profile > Unattended Setup and walk through the wizard.
Info Center documentation:
2. Preparing the OS Configuration for Unattended Install
Once the import is complete, open the OS configuration, go to the Windows tab and set the "Administrator Name:" field to Administrator. Also verify that the time zone is set. If you are using volume licensing, then select the “Volume licensing” option. If not, then set the serial number.
3. Deploying the Unattended Install
After the unattended install system profile is created, it can be deployed to a target system in order to create the clone profile. The methods to deploy an unattended or cloned profile are exactly the same. The big difference is the time for installation. The unattended install is significantly longer to complete than a cloned image.
Info Center documentation:
4. Customizing Master Image
There are many options to configure in the image such as included software, user ids, local policies, etc. Also remember that software modules can be used to customize an image after deployment, so make sure what is included will not require you to make more updates to the image than necessary.
Some of the deciding factors for what to do in the image vs in a software module:
- will the software take too long to deploy in a software module. For example:
- MS Office, this product takes a very long time to run through installation than it does to have included in the image
- Adobe Flash, this product is quick to install but is updated quite regularly, so it is probably better to have in a software module.
- Antivirus applications. Since these are core to protecting the corporate environment, they should be in the image. This is because there could be a failure installing the software module which would end up leaving a system unprotected.
The Windows 7 image is quite large even without any software installed, so whatever can be cleaned to minimize this image would be a good idea. Typically I would include any patch backups as this could shrink an image by 1GB or more.
As stated, I have changed my Administrator (SID 500) account to myadmin. This is a typical configuration that most sites will do. There are a couple “quirks” that happen when you do this:
- After the change, the user directory on the system will be C:\Users\Administrator. When you deploy the image, the directory will be changed to C:\Users\myadmin. You cannot change the directory name on the original image (you can Google it).
- As stated earlier, when setting the OS Configuration in step 7, you have to set the Administrator Name to “Administrator”. If you do not, the system will be deployed with the “myadmin” account, but it will not be the SID 500 account, it will just be an id in the Administrators group. The SID 500 will be called Administrator and it will be disabled. When set correctly, the “myadmin” will be the SID 500 account and another account called “Administrator” will be added to the Administrators and Users groups. For my deployment, I included a software module that would remove it from both groups and disable the account.
Another issue that I ran into was that I deleted the C:\install directory. This is created by the unattended install. When deploying an image to the target, the c:\install directory would be created, but when executing software modules later in the build process, they would not execute. This is being addressed in a future fix (not in FP04). To workaround this issue, just leave the c:\install directory in the image.
5. Executing sysprep
Once the unattended install is complete, the system can then be configured with any corporate software and configurations. After all configurations are completed, the next step is to use the Microsoft tool called Sysprep. This tool is used to remove system specific configurations to allow for a cloning of an image to different systems.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783215%28WS.10%29.aspx
Unlike Windows XP, sysprep is already on Windows 7 and is located in C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep. The options selected are OOBE, Generalize and Shutdown. I prefer using the shutdown as I do not want to miss the reboot and have the mini-setup run again.
Info Center documentation:
Notes:
A system that is joined to a domain cannot be used for creating a cloned profile. If the system has been joined to a domain, then it has to be moved to workgroup mode.
- Some extra recommended tasks are:
- Empty recycle bin
- Execute chkdsk to ensure there are no disk error
- Clean out temporary files
- Remove any persistent drive mappings
- Clear the Application, Security and System event logs
- Sysprep still has the limit of being executed 3 times in Windows 7.
6. Capture Clone Image
Capturing the Windows 7 OS is no different than the methods used for any other operating system. The process is quite a bit longer than Windows XP and requires more reboots, but overall the whole process is the same.
Info Center documentation: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v3r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.tivoli.tpm.osd.doc/deploy/tosd_clone_win.html
7. Modifying the OS Configuration for Clone Install
Once an image is imported, the OS configuration will need to be set. The OS Configuration is where you use OSD to set the parameters that will be used in the unattend.xml file. The UI will allow for the configuration of many of the common settings, but if there are more that are required, use the “Edit custom unattend.xml” on the General tab. When setting the OS configuration, the most important item to set is the “Administrator Name” to “Administrator”. This is done by opening the properties for the OS configuration and going to the Windows tab. Also on this tab in the “System Customization”, check the setting “Always authorize installation of unsigned drivers”.
8. Deploying the Cloned OS
Deploying the Windows 7 OS is no different than the methods used for any other operating system. The process is quite a bit longer than Windows XP and requires more reboots, but overall the whole process is the same. One thing that did happen in Windows 7 and not XP is that OSD actually logs into the OS. This causes some issues with scripts that may be in the run/runonce/startup.
Info Center documentation:
Other Notes:
TPMfOSD started supporting Windows 7 in 7.1.1.1, but this version and 7.1.1.2 use the WinPE2. There are some pretty significant improvements in using 7.1.1.3 or better yet 7.1.1.4 as it utilizes WinPE3 for the deployments. If you have not started, or are just starting, then move to one of these versions. There are other reasons for moving to these newer versions, but this is one of the most visible from a deployment perspective.
Conclusion
As noted, this is a fairly high level of using OSD for Windows 7 deployments, but should start you on the right path.
Remember, we at Gulf Breeze Software Partners are ready to help you with your implementations on TPMfOSD or any IBM Tivoli product
If you have any other topics you would like covered, send me a note at martin dot carnegie at gulfsoft dot com.
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