The Search for YOUR Golden Image...

A little bit more about installing Vista - or Server 2008

James O'Neill's blog — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:06:54 GMT

Matt McSpirit IM'd me a couple of days ago to ask if I'd built a custom Windows Vista installation DVD.

re: The Search for YOUR Golden Image...

Tim Toennies — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:20:28 GMT

This means that everyone who uses this image has apps & an OS with the same Product Key, right? Will MS' licensing policy support this?

re: The Search for YOUR Golden Image...

Tim Toennies — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:40:03 GMT

This is a great explanation. But in looking at the BDD requirements there is a need for a Windows Server with Windows Deployment running. Does your installation require that this server exists? Thanks.

re: The Search for YOUR Golden Image...

mattmcspirit — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:30:43 GMT

Tim,

Good questions – thanks for these. Firstly, let me start by saying that the method I’ve described isn’t aimed at you creating a Golden Image, and giving it out to your friends and family etc – in a non-business sense, it’s aimed at saving you time in the future – it’s a convenience thing. I know, now, that in future, it will only take me an hour to rebuild my machine, completely, from scratch, whereas before, to get to the same point, it would have taken more like 2 to 3. In a business sense, the Golden Image is used differently.

With regards to the image having the apps – yes, you are correct – hence, why you couldn’t just give it out to family and friends. However, when you Sysprep the physical machine before you capture the image, it removes all the machine specifics, such as the product key for the OS, machine specific information and so on, so that alone, minus the applications would not be a problem from a licensing standpoint.

Think about this scenario. Company X has 100 machines, they want to make them all identical. They have a volume licence for Vista Enterprise, and for Office 2007 Enterprise, and they also have a custom accounting package which they have written, and a messenger package. They also want a French language pack to be available, and all the latest security updates, so they don’t have to download them individually when they boot for the first time. All users should have identical software, regardless of the hardware. The quickest way to deploy now, and for the future? Create their Golden Image on a single machine, Sysprep the box to capture the image (using the BDD would be the easiest way) and create an unattend file for the image, within which, you would include the Volume Licence key for Vista, Office, and the accounting package if appropriate. This means, that when all those 100 machines are booted for the first time, they will correctly have the Volume Licence keys for the products, and all that is left to do is activate with the KMS Server.

The main point to make around licensing is the placement of product keys within the unattend file. If I gave my Golden Image that I created, to one of my friends, fine, they would need to get a product key for Vista (due to it being sysprepped, and my key being removed), but they would have a copy of Office 2007 Enterprise on there too – with Microsoft’s internal Volume Licence Key – this would essentially be piracy.

Does this make sense? Let me know if I’ve confused things!

With regards to your second question - you don't necessarily need a server - when you are creating the deployment point in BDD, you can select 'Media' which allows you to create ISO's to burn to DVD, or create the structure for a USB stick. Obviously, it would be great if you can combine this with a Windows Server and the WDS role - but it's not essential.

Ping me a mail if you need any more info.

Cheers,

Matt

re: The Search for YOUR Golden Image...

ix — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:10:39 GMT

I don't know if this is still alive given the two year hiatus... Thanks so much for this info. I have a small issue and wonder if you can assist me. I put the Vista install disk on a USB drive and replaced install.wim with a golden image. It installed perfectly, but left some files on my root drive:

$DRVLTRS

WinPEpge.sys

$bootdrive$

$installdrive$

$lsdrive$

\$WINDOWS.~BT

\$WINDOWS.~LS

and a few more in \Windows

It looks like I somehow broke a cleanup process. Any thoughts? Know that I am not that sophisticated of a user. Also, this is not that big of a deal, but it is just shy of being perfect!

re: The Search for YOUR Golden Image...

mattmcspirit — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:10:57 GMT

It looks like WinPE (involved in the capture/deployment of the image) is putting those files where they are - in all honesty, I wouldn't worry too much - WinPEpge.sys for example, is the page file for WinPE, and it should have been deleted after the process has completed. If there are no files/folders within the folders you've specified above, you should be able to delete them, but as they aren't actually doing anything as such, maybe leave them as they are. They won't be taking up much room.

Thanks!

Matt