Hi,

I'm at the point where I want to generalize my image with Sysprep. Unfortunately, this is not a simple thing - Sysprep deletes what you have previously set up some troublesome. Meanwhile, I was able to configure sysprep not to "configure/delete" my user settings. However, again all unwanted services are started. Also, my SQL Server installation (unattend) may present problems. So my general question:

Is Sysprep absolutely necessary? Or is there just in embedded an alternative?

Hi embedded :-)

Sysprep is mainly focused on direct OEM business (for Dell, HP,..) and not for our embedded space. In our market, we don't want that the end user normaly have to set up things by there own. We want to clone ready images. So sysprep is not the answer.

So short answer to your question is: No.

You don't need to run sysprep but then you have to take care manually about some points:

- SID: Up to XP Professional, Every Image need an own SID. But this can be done easily with the program NEWSID from sysinternals.com. I.e. you can automatically run this tool with a runonce registry key in the image.

- Starting from Vista, you need to adopt the Partition ID for every image. See the other post to get the comnmands via bcdedit. But you don't need to change the SID any more. (You can still do this if you want with SIDCHG)

- The "real" embedded opeating systems don't have the activation in and the embedded OEM don't need to change the PIDs in the image. So no need for sysprep here. For the standard full version, there are tool like ChangePID available to change the PID in the running image. Starting from Vitsa, this is implemented with SLMGR.

- Specially in WES7 when using EWF, you have to take care about the Partition ID in the EWF tool. See the other post for the solution via ewfdll.

So dooing this, this is the embedded alternative to sysprep.

...and it works better, faster and more controlled from the OEM. :-)

best regards

Martin, eMVP

Hi Martin,

Many thanks for the fast and precise answer! I use Windows Embedded Standard 7 - and I read a lot of things about the SID "Mystery".... see also Mark Russinovich:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2009/11/03/3291024.aspx

In my case I will only capture/clone my "golden" Image with ImageX and change automatically the computername on the target system (identical hardware) - thats all.EWF protects the System-Partition and FBWF the Data-Partition.

Srikanth Kamath from MS say that it is still required to use Sysprep before capture the deployed image:

"Certain components will use and store machine specific information such as disk signature and partition offsets. These values will be different on other machines even if they have identical hardware."

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/quebecservicingdeployment/thread/dcce3c19-6b42-44e3-b15f-5758dbcae574

When I apply the Image with ImageX:

Do the bcdedit commands exactly solve the problems with the disk signature and partition offsets? It would be perfect if I could "kick" sysprep ;-)

thx!!

embedded..

Yes, this is exactely solving this issue.

The bcededit is solving the Partion ID stored in the bootloader store. So imediately after applying the image with ImageX run the 3 commands out of your console:

bcdedit /set {default} device partition=c:
bcdedit /set {default} osdevice partition=c:
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=c:

and when using EWF, after the first startup of the cloned image run (i.e. with RUNONCE key):

rundll32 ewfcfg.dll,EwfSysprepSpecialize

This exactely the same command as sysprep itself starts up.

best regards,

Martin, eMVP

perfect - thank you!

best regards....

embedded

Thank you Martin!

Excellent information. It solved my issue with imagex. I'm also struggling with the sysprep for the same reasons as mentioned in the previous posts. Are there any non-technical issues for not running sysprep? E.g. does the Microsoft WES7 license agreement or similar require the use of sysprep before the images are allowed to be cloned?

Best Regards,

Jay

Hi Jay,

no, there are no regulations from Microsoft to use sysprep. It is of course recommended. Also 3rd party SW can add themself to the standard sysprep functionality. When you manually generalize the image, you have to take care about such things.

best regards,

Martin Grossen, eMVP

Hi Martin,

Thank you for your quick response. Discarding the sysprep should make our life much easier.

Best Regards,

Jay