For those of you who have read my previous blog, sorry for taking so long to talk about sysprep. School has been getting chaotic. Now, on to talk about sysprep. Sysprep is the name of Microsoft’s System Preparation Utility for Microsoft Windows operating system deployment. This is a utility you will need to learn if you plan on using Free Open-Source Ghost. Sysprep is easy to use in Windows Vista and 7. With Vista and 7, all you have to do is find the sysprep folder and execute the sysprep application. XP is a different story.With XP, you have to download the sysprep utility from Microsoft’s website. (This is the way I do sysprep at my work-study job) Create a folder in the C: called Sysprep. Double-click on “deploy.cab”. Hit ctrl-a and right click on them and select Extract. Extract all of the files into the sysprep folder that you have already made. Then on “setupmgr.” Next>Create New>Sysprep Setup>Windows XP Professional>Yes, fully automate installation>Name: “Your name”, Organization: “Your Organization>Use all defaults except Screen Area. Change it to 1024×768>(GMT -5:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)>Enter product key here>Automatically generate computer names>Put in “password” as the administrator password>Use typical network settings>keep on Workgroup>leave telephony blank>use default regional settings>leave the rest of the next 5 fields alone>save file in Sysprep folder. This all creates the sysprep system information file. Open the “sysprep” file in Notepad. Under the “[Unattended]” section, add these two lines: “DriversSigningPolicy=Ignore” & “UpdateInstalledDrivers=Yes.” At the bottom of the file, add a new section called “[SysprepMassStorage].” This is where all of your drivers will be added in the next step. Open up a command line (Start>Run>type “cmd”) and switch. to the Sysprep folder by typing in “cd Sysprep.” Next, type in “sysprep -bmsd.” This adds all of the drivers to the sysprep answer file. The file’s size should now drastically enlarge from 1 MB to around 30 or more MB. Create a text file under “C:Sysprepi386$oem$” called “Cmdlines.” Open the text file and add “[Commands]” to the top left-hand corner. Under that add “C:/Sysprep/sysprep -clean” quotation marks and all! Go back to “C:/Sysprep” and double-click on “sysprep.” Check “Mini-Setup”, select “Shut Down” on “Shut Down Mode”, and click on “Reseal.” The computer will then begin the sysprep process and shut down when finished. After you have completed all of this, then my blog about FOG picks back up.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.
