This is a step by step guide on Sysprepping (and yes, I have made sysprepping a verb now) a Windows 7 machine from start to finish. This will guide you through building the unattended XML file, having the administrator profile copy over to default profile, and fixes for what is right now a not 100% working system from Microsoft. This is something I would have easily paid for when first starting this process. I don’t know why Microsoft can’t hand us a 100% working process. There will always be fixes, even with the RTM release.

Here is a list of what you will need:

- Latest version of WAIK : KB3AIK_EN.iso Version 1.0
- Windows Vista or Windows 7 Machine to build the XML file on
- ISO or DVD of Windows 7 Installation (x32 or x64)
- WinPE Boot Environment : BrianLeeJackson WinPE 3.0 BootLoader

Once you have WAIK installed on a machine your Start Menu should look like the image below:

Windows 7 WAIK Version 1

Go ahead and launch the Windows System Image Manager. Picture of the program is below.

Windows System Image Manager

We now need to open a Windows 7 image. If you have an installation DVD, insert it now. Or if you have an ISO of 7, go ahead and extract it to a folder on your desktop. (I recommend 7-zip). Back in Windows System Image Manager (WISM) go to the file menu and select “Select Windows Image”. You will now want to browse to the .CLG file in your Windows 7 installation (I am using Windows 7 Enterprise x64 in my example). It is located in the sources folder. See Image below.

Selecting CLG File - WSIM

Now we need to create a new answer file. Go to the file menu and select “Create New Answer File.” Right after creating one, go ahead and simply go to file menu and select “Save Answer File.” This will give your XML file a name and save location. Now you see we have two category folders, Components and Packages. Under the Components folder you see that we have 7 options:

- 1 windowsPE
- 2 offlineServicing
- 3 generalize
- 4 specialize
- 5 auditSystem
- 6 auditUser
- 7 oobeSystem

These are very important as these are the steps in which the XML file is sequenced.

The next part is a little confusing. You are going to add components, from under the “Windows Image” section on the bottom left hand side to the passes on your Answer File. To add a component, you can right click on them and select “add to # pass”. There are many different options you can add, but they have to be done in a certain order and pass otherwise your sysprep might fail. I am simply going to use the one I created as the example.

Download my Windows 7 x86 Sysprep XML File
Download my Windows 7 x64 Sysprep XML File

WSIM Passes

Here is more information about adding options under the passes:

1 WindowsPE

Nothing required in my example.

2 OfflineServicing

Nothing required in my example.

3 Generalize

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP_neutral

Set 1 for SkipRearm to allow up to 8 rearms

4 Specialize

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-UX_neutral

SkipAutoActivation: true

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral

Computer Name: * (Randomly generated name, use this to test)
CopyProfile: false (doesn’t quite work, we will do that manually later)
Registered Organization: Microsoft (you must leave this in this section)
Registered Owner: AutoBVT (you must leave this in this section)
ShowWindowsLive: false
TimeZone: Pacific Standard Time

5 AuditSystem

Nothing required in my example.

6 AuditUser

Nothing required in my example.

7 OobeSystem

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-International-Core_neutral

InputLocale: en-us
SystemLocale: en-us
UILanguage: en-us
UserLocale: en-us

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral

RegisteredOrganization: YourCompanyName
RegisteredOwner: YourName

Under amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral component, you will have a subheader for OOBE:

HideEULAPage true
NetworkLocation: Home
ProtectYourPC: 1

Under amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral component, you will have a subheader for UserAccounts:

You will want to add both an administrator password and another local account with administrator rights and password.

If you have questions, look at my image above to see full layout of components, it should help. Also, you might have additional component headings that I didn’t mention. If you are simply testing first time, just delete them for now. You can add all sorts of components later on, you should do a successful sysprep if this is your first time, better to keep it simple and to the basics.

K, now go ahead and save your answer file. The building of the XML file is now done. That is the worst part. You would think that the sysprep process would get easier as new OS’s come out, but its pretty much the exact opposite.

Prepping your machine

K, now it is time to get your machine that you want to sysprep and capture an image of ready to go. First, you are going enable the administrator account on the computer. To do this on Windows Vista or Windows 7, open up a command prompt (Run as Administrator) and input the following command:

net user administrator /active:yes

Hit enter and you should see “successfully enabled Administrator Account”.

So you should currently have two accounts on your computer. The account you are currently logged into and the Administrator account which you just enabled. You are going to want to customize all of your preferences, favorites, bookmarks, taskbar, etc. under the currently logged in account. Once you have everything just perfect, you are going to reboot the computer and login to the administrator account. This next part is very important. You are going to go to “My Computer” and then to Organize and folder and search options. Go ahead and select “Show hidden files, folders, and drives”. Picture is below.

Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives

The last thing we need to do is disable the WMP sharing service. This is a bug in Windows 7 and hopefully will eventually be fixed. If you don’t disable this before the sysprep your sysprep will simply fail to run. Go to run, msconfig, and then disable the “Windows Media Player Networking Sharing” service.

Now you are ready to sysprep your computer and capture an image of it!! Finally! So, grab that XML file you created earlier and you are going to place it on the machine you built your image on. Copy or move it to : C:\windows\system32\sysprep.

Now to run sysprep, navigate to that sysprep folder, hold SHIFT and right click and select “Open New Command Windows Here”.
Next, input the following commands:

sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:NAMEOFYOURANSWERFILE.xml

Your computer will now run the sysprep process, removing SID, etc, and then shutdown. You can have it restart, but shutdown is always safer if you have a ton of things going on. You will need to boot to your WinPE Boot environment when your computer starts back up. If you miss the first time upon boot up, you will have to re-input your sysprep commands. So do a shutdown, not a restart.

You can use my BrianLeeJackson WinPE3.0 BootLoader to boot up from USB or CD and capture your image. Once you capture your image, you are all done. You now have a sysprepped Windows 7 image. I have performed this task on over 120 computers so far and it has been flawless. The hard part was getting everything configured correctly. I hope this documentation helps someone out there, I know I would have killed for a tutorial like this when I first started

Microsoft Windows 7 Icon

Step #1

I am assuming you have captured your image already and are ready for deployment. Go ahead and boot up your image deployment software (WinPE 2.0 or WinPE 3.0).

Step #2

In my other articles I describe how to use DiskPart and also avoiding the hidden partition before deploying a new image. I suggest reading them.

Step #3

After you have deployed your non-sysprepped image you need to run the following commands: (I have a batch file I use to do this).

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

Step #4

This will fix the BOOTMGR problem when deploying a non-syprepped image in Vista or 7. Enjoy!

Step #1

Open up Command Prompt

You can do the first step within a normal command prompt window or within the WAIK Deployment Tools Command Prompt Window.

Step #2

Diskpart

This launches the DiskPart program which is included within Windows Vista x32, x64 and Windows 7 x32, x64.

Step #3

List Disk

Before you do anything you will want to see which disk is which on your computer.

Step #4

select disk 1

You will want to pick the corresponding disk in which you want to use for your bootable flash drive. Careful, because this will completely erase the disk you select.

Step #5

clean

This cleans up your disk.

Step #6

create partition primary

This creates the partition on your flash drive.

Step #7

select partition 1

This selects the partition you just created in Step #6.

Step #8

active

This marks the select partition as active.

Step #9

format fs=fat32 quick

This will format your flash drive in FAT32 format. Make sure you use the quick command otherwise it will do a standard format and will take a while. For bootable flash drives the quick format will always be fine.

Step #10

assign

This will assign the next available drive letter to your flash drive. (You can also specify which drive letter you would like it to be assigned)

Step #11

exit

This exits DiskPart.

Step #12

exit

This exits CMD.

Step #13

Then just copy the contents of the “c:\winpe_x86\ISO\” folder in which you have your WinPE 3.0 environment created in the previous article and you are ready to boot up on a flash drive to WinPE 3.0. Enjoy!

Here are the commands all together:

Diskpart
list disk [See which drive is which]
select disk 1 [corresponding to disk on your computer]
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
exit
exit

You will need the following to proceed:
Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7 RC (Download from Microsoft) : 05.01.09

Once you have installed WAIK then you will need to browse to your start menu and click on “Deployment Tools Command Prompt”. I have provided a picture below.

DISM

Once you have launched DTCP you will need to follow through the commands I have compiled below. The first one I have provided a screenshot.

DISM – Step #1 – Prep/Cleanup

DISM /Cleanup-Wim

The DISM cleanup command simply cleans up any previous wims/mounts you have been working with. If you do this a lot, you will need to use this command otherwise you will start receiving errors from previous wims possibly still left on the system.

DISM Step #1

DISM – Step #2 – Copy WinPE 3.0 to your local C Drive

copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe_x86
copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim

This creates a winpe_x86 folder on your C: drive and then copies the contents of the WinPE folder from the WAIK installation to your folder.

DISM – Step #3 – Mounting .Wim File on your local C Drive

Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:C:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\winpe_x86\mount

This command mounts the wim file that was copied over in step #2 so that you can browse the system32 folder and insert your custom scripts, etc.

DISM – Step #4 – Adding Packages to your WIM

Dism /image:C:\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_FPs\winpe-wmi.cab”
Dism /image:C:\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_FPs\en-us\winpe-wmi_en-us.cab”

There are many packages you can add to your WINPE boot environment, these are two I always add to mine.

DISM – Step #5 – Adding Drivers to WinPE

DISM /image:c:\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Driver /driver:C:\YOUR_FOLDER_OF_INF_DRIVERS\ /recurse

A nice addition to DISM over the previous peimg command in WINPE 2.0 is the ability to add drivers with the /recurse command. The /recurse command now allows us to simply have all of our drivers in their own directory and tell DISM to scan the root folder and everything beneath it. The number of sub directories won’t matter. I have a huge library of drivers, for example, you will want to have the network and vga drivers for anything that you boot up to in the WinPE environment. By adding the network driver to your WinPE boot environment, it allows you to access network shares for capturing and deploying .wim images.

DISM – Step #6 – Adding Custom Scripts, Batch Files, Etc.

xcopy /e /y “C:\YOUR_FOLDER_OF_SCRIPTS” C:\winpe_x86\mount\Windows\System32\

Without adding anything to your WinPE boot environment you will simply be left with a command prompt window when booting to it on a computer. I have added over 15 different batch scripts with different functions. Click here to download my WinPE discs. One thing I highly suggest adding is GImageX. GImageX is a very small GUI program that you can add to be able to capture, deploy, and mount images within the WinPE boot environment. I have provided a picture of GImageX GUI below.

For WinPE 3.0 Boot Environment - Mount, Deploy, Capture Images

DISM – Step #7 – Unmounting your finished .WIM

Dism /Unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\winpe_x86\mount\ /Commit

This commits the final changes to your .WIM file and anything you added to it. It is very important to unmount your .WIM file when you have finished.

DISM – Step #8 – Copies your .WIM to Boot ISO

copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim /Y

DISM – Step #9 – Creates bootable .ISO of WinPE 3.0

oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso

Now, if you are wanting to use a flash stick you will need to format a flash stick in a certain way, and then simply copy the contents of the c:\winpe_x86\ISO\ to your flash drive. And thats it! Stick it in a computer, restart, and boot to it. The .ISO made in step #9 can simply be burned to a CD with Nero or other program capable of making bootable CD and then you can boot to it in the same way.

DISM – Step #10 – Optional Backup

xcopy /e /y “C:\winpe_x86″ E:\BACKUP_FOLDER_FOR_LATEST_BOOT_BUILD\

This step is optional, but I always like to keep a backup for the future. Also, if you ever need to create another bootable flash stick or CD you can simply go to your backup and grab the files.