@jleonv There are a couple of things here.

I would build a golden image outside of AD. You should be able to install almost all of the software as a standalone machine. As soon as you attach the golden image to AD, it will become tattooed with AD stuff. Its best to do that post deployment either by using fog or a unatted.xml script. Build your golden image on a VM and use snapshots to back out changes if they mess up the golden image. You will thank me later. Use the windows lite touch method of windows deployment and use an unattend.xml file to answer all of the common OOBE questions. Use Microsoft MDT to build your golden image.

FOG is a block level imaging tool. It moves disk blocks from here to there very quickly. The down side is that FOG is not very dynamic when it comes to install time decisions.

MDT is a file level imaging tool. The advantage is install time changes can be made on the target computer, the down side is that it is slower to image than FOG.

@zaboxmaster Another opiton might be to access the windows registry to read out the version. Within the FOG OS (FOS) linux there is the linux reged program. That can be used to read/edit the windows registry.

Below is an example from one of my tutorials on post install scripts to update a registry key. That is only meant to show you what is needed to make the program work.

egfile=“/ntfs/Windows/System32/config/SOFTWARE” key=“\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DevicePath” devpath=“%SystemRoot%\DRV;%SystemRoot%\inf;”; reged -e “$regfile” &>/dev/null <<EOFREG ed $key

The question is how would I go about doing this if at all possible?
Where would the best place be to run it from? FOG.MAN.REG ???
Is the Windows mounted at all during registration?

Is it possible, yes

Best place, yes probably a customized version of fog.man.reg (I have a tutorial on how to slide an updated version of that into FOS Linux at deploy time). To make the inventory also query the target OS.

No windows os partition is not mounted during inventory. For FOG inventory its not needed. BUT I have a tutorial on how to find and mount the partition during a post install script for driver injection that you can use as the basis for the inventory process.

@FoxNBeard said in General A to Z support (FOG):

It would install with the Administrator account activated. Through the unattend.xml I was able to figure out how to have it make a second user with administrator priviledges, but I couldn’t seem to solve how to not have the administrator account active and only the user.

Use the setupcomplete.cmd batch file to do this. With something like this in batch

REM Rename the default administrator account to something else wmic useraccount where name='administrator' rename slipperyjim net localgroup administrators slipperyjim /add REM Rename the guest user account wmic useraccount where name='guest' rename debbiedowner REM Create a fake administrator account for hackers to bang on net user Administrator NeG@tiveNancy-F@nT@#13s /ADD /comment:"Built-in account for administering the computer/domain" /PASSWORDCHG:NO /active:NO /Y REM Be sure to remove from administrators and users groups, add to guest group to limit access net localgroup Administrators Administrator /delete net localgroup Guests Administrator /add net localgroup Users Administrator /delete REM create new System Admin user net user sysstarr "1cecr3am-SanWitch0" /add /EXPIRES:NEVER /PASSWORDCHG:NO /active:YES /Y net localgroup Administrators sysacce55 /add wmic useraccount where Name='sysacce55' set PasswordExpires=FALSE REM Disable slipperyjim (real admin/root user account) net user slipperyjim /active:no

I presume due to limited knowledge, I couldn’t figure out how to let MDT install both updates and applications correctly.

There is a task sequence to apply windows updates. It helps if you have a local WSUS server to cache the packages. When I was just getting started in imaging this site helped out quite a bit. https://www.deploymentresearch.com/

I was wondering if I was able to manually configure a VM and pull an image to FOG that way?

Yes developing your golden image on a VM is the best choice so you can use snapshots to fix o-crap moments while perfecting your golden image.

Hostname was identical to the original machine (Although I think, unless wrongly configured, the hostname changer in FOG was active).

This is true because fog is a block level cloner, it knows nothing about the target system. To use the hostname changer will you will to register the computer with FOG and have the FOG client installed. That is not something you probably want as a system builder. You can have FOG set a name of the computer at deploy time via using a custom FOG post install script that will inject a new host name into the unattend.xml file at deployment time.

Yes I would still sysprep your windows system. For full disclosure I have not had to build an image for Windows 11 yet, so I might be incorrect here. BUT I would also build your golden image so that its protected from getting to the internet. I have seen on windows 10 if the workstation can get to the internet it will try to down stuff causing sysprep to fail.

I would spend my time getting MDT to do what you want it to do to give you the perfect golden image. The capture and deploy with FOG is the easy part (kind of). If you want to do more of the advanced stuff like editing the unattend.xml file on the fly it will take some time but I have examples for that.

@Sebastian-Roth I know nothing about API’s so I wouldn’t know where to start with that, like even how to form a proper question to ask the google lol. I’m using FOG 1.5.10. I have to keep testing and troubleshooting the image cron jobs.

@george1421 Perfect thanks.

@sopinv I don’t understand the why.

You can do a trigger in your database like this:

DELIMITER // CREATE TRIGGER limit_rows_trigger AFTER INSERT ON your_table FOR EACH ROW BEGIN DECLARE row_count INT; SELECT COUNT(*) INTO row_count FROM your_table; IF row_count >= 1000 THEN SIGNAL SQLSTATE '45000' SET MESSAGE_TEXT = 'Row limit reached (1000 rows)'; END IF; END; // DELIMITER ;

@Lenain Just a little FYI.
I don’t know when I’ll have time to test it out fully before putting it into production, but the idea of adding this to the module was not forgotten and I started a branch for it while I was working on some other bug fixes
https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi/commit/03c0342cff759ef272a64bbb91cbb1b5999bab9c

@Florent For removal of the FOG Client, a connection to the server is not needed.

The only reason it’s needed during install is because it’s communicating to the fog server to get the certificates needed from the server. These certificates are not necessary to remove the software.

@Tom-Elliott Yes this resolves the issue.

@Numa09 First this looks like a DOS Batch file not a VBS file. That is maybe why its giving you an error with line 2.

Second make sure that csv file is part of your snapin pack.

@DBCountMan said in Snap-in: Run a powershell script prior to capture:

I have no experience with snapins and was wondering how can I use them to run a powershell script before rebooting to capture. I have a script that clears the Windows logs and in that script (right now) at the very end shuts the computer down, preparing it for manual capture. I have the FOG client installed on my test system.

:EDIT: Sorry I think I figured it out.

Might as well think out loud in case anyone else can use this info. I got the snapin to run my clearalllogs.ps1 script, now the next challenge is to have the script run then immediately after it reboots, start the capture.

Run a PowerShell script prior to capture is a handy feature that allows you to automate tasks and streamline your workflow. Great addition to the toolset

@Rizingknight72 Make sure you have fast boot disabled in Windows and so a clean shutdown before you start capturing.

@george1421 Oh that makes sense I did guess that TrueNAS scale supports that too

@tadziuuu Are you referring to booting bios based computers? If yes then use memdisk to load the cd iso image into memory. The one caveat here is that the iso disk must be less than 2GB in size since memdisk is a 32 bit application and there needs to be room in ram for the OS to boot from the iso image. In the same tutorial you found the parameters in your first post, search for memdisk to see what parameters you need.

@joseheitor I can think of 2 possible conditions to cause this.

The reboot process leaves the hardware in a strange state where iPXE can’t get an IP address on a warm start. Your network switch and spanning tree (if standard spanning tree) is enabled would cause this. Explanation Default Spanning tree takes 27 seconds to start forwarding network data after a network wink (as if the computer is rebooting). A warm start boots faster than a cold start so by the time iPXE gives up STP has not started forwarding data yet. Where at cold start the computer tests memory and checks hardware that isn’t needed on a warm start. But again this is only a guess as to the reason.

One quick check for spanning tree is to put a dumb (cheap) un managed network switch between the building switch and pxe booting computer, see if that resolves the post imaging reboot. If it does then look into your network switch settings to enable fast-stp, port-fast, or RSTP (whatever your switch vendor calls it).

@george1421 Fantastic! Many thanks.

Thanks for the information.

depending on the task if i recall correctly there is a folder in the TFTP or near by that has a file created with the MAC address as the tile name for that job.

(Just saying 🙂 )

Correct me if I’m wrong please.

@jnelly17 said in Hard Drive not recognized after image is deployed:

HP Elite SFF 800 G9

Turn off the Raid option in storage section, your PC will boot up!