WIM files and FOG
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@dhruvin-t said in WIM files and FOG:
I have Windows 10 sysprepped right now. I used WinPE to capture the sysprepped image.
At this point you need to use fog image capture tool to capture your sysprep’d image. Your WinPE image (wim file) is no value to FOG. FOG uses partclone to capture disk images and compress them for storage on the FOG repository.
I have all the drivers needed for my models which are Lenovo T440,50,60&70 series sitting in a folder.
For the LENOVO systems, you need to ensure the drivers are in the INF format and not compressed .EXE installers.
I just installed FOG yesterday and is now properly configured.
Great I assume you have FOG 1.4.4 installed. Can we assume that you did not install the FOG Client into your reference system?
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I have the drivers in the INF format in a folder. I did install the 1.4.4 and I did install the FOG service (client) before i sysprepped the VM. I suppose I need to network boot into FOG and do a capture that way? What do I do with the INF files as far as the drivers go. Does FOG somehow integrate them into the image?
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@dhruvin-t said in WIM files and FOG:
I have the drivers in the INF format in a folder.
OK good on this front. FOG doesn’t have a built in tool to inject drivers so it will require a little coordination between FOG and your Win10 image. Lets circle back to this in a moment since the task is a bit involved.
I did install the 1.4.4 and I did install the FOG service (client) before i sysprepped the VM.
Did you follow the recommendations to disable the FOG service before you sysprep’d it? If not you will have issues during OOBE where the FOG client kicks in too soon and starts doing its thing before OOBE is finished, creating a botched install.
I suppose I need to network boot into FOG and do a capture that way?
Yes, you will need to do a few things.- Go into the FOG Web GUI and create an image definition for this Win10 image.
- PXE boot into the FOG iPXE menu with the target computer (its best to do this before you sysprep the image because you don’t want the sysprep’d image to boot into windows unexpectedly.)
- From the FOG iPXE menu pick full registration. You will be asked for the computer name, image definition and so on.
- Once the reference image has been captured and rebooted from inventory make sure you power it off. You don’t want it to boot into Windows.
- Now from in the FOG Webgui you should see the host you just registered. Create a capture task for that host to capture the image and upload it to FOG. Make sure you check the box to power off the reference computer after image capture.
- Now pxe boot the target computer once again. It should start to capture the disk right away. Once image capture is done the target computer should shut down.
Now test deploy to another VM just to ensure that you can capture and deploy to VMs and OOBE runs as expected. You will need to register that second VM before you can deploy to it.
Also it may be helpful for your VMs once you enter the capture phase of the reference image, you change the boot order to have pxe booting first.
What do I do with the INF files as far as the drivers go. Does FOG somehow integrate them into the image?
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@george1421 I believe I did disable the FOG service before I sysprep’d. However I have a snapshot of the VM I can revert back to. I took a snapshot just before I hit the OK on Sysprep. So since I already have the wim captured, I will revert back to that snapshot. I will create image def and follow steps you mentioned to capture this image. Unfortunately this is going to have to wait till tomorrow since its getting late for me. I will update again tomorrow on how it went. Thanks again George!
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@dhruvin-t Great, get your captures and deploys working (even to the lenovo hardware) without the driver integration first. Since this is a new FOG install get comfortable with the process before you move into the more complex stuff. I do have some tutorial on FOG driver injection (3 to be exact) that we can reference when you get there. I may need to review/rewrite them since Win10 is now more prevalent than when I wrote them.
But anyway, get your deployment processes down and your workflow created then move into the driver injection.
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Hey George back at it man!
These are the only options when i try to pxe. No full registration option
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so I was messing around and did approve this host. I went to the website and saw the host in there so I set the task to capture. I turned on the VM and it ran some commands and eventually got stuck on init.xz ok…
I turned off the VM again. Deleted the host from website and turned on the vm. It went into pxe and this time it showed the full reg option. I clicked on it and it ran some commands and now it is sitting in a black screen with a _ cursor. I think its stuck but I dont want to touch it incase its doing the capture in the background. Your thoughts?
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@dhruvin-t it’s stuck And based on what I’m reading you’re booting pie via legacy but hdd is booting Uefi. Please change host bios exit to refind and see if that helps.
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@tom-elliott said in WIM files and FOG:
change host bios exit to refind
Hello Tom
thanks for the help sir. I am not following you. My vmware options are set following. I have unchecked the option “Boot with EFI instead of BIOS”. If I enable (check) that, bios boots doesnt boot into pxe because it doesnt find the nbp file and it fails. Heres the link
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@dhruvin-t all I did was take a guess. The next guess I might have is the disk for the vm doesn’t have an OS yet. I don’t know many details though.
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No worries at all, I do have win 10 installed on the disk on the VM. Its very confusing. It wont budge!
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@dhruvin-t please set cm to efi but do not boot pxe this time. Does it boot? If not uncheck efi. No pxe, does it boot?
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It does boot for both scenarios. I was trying to change the host management to assign the image to the host that is going to be captured but it keeps on saying “Cannot change image.
Host is in a tasking.”what does this mean?
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@dhruvin-t I’m a bit confused where you are at right now.
Where you first posted today, the fog server saw that you launched the fog client on your reference image and was waiting for you to approve the system. It basically put the system in a hold state "pending’ until you approved it on the FOG server WebUI.
Now lets understand you have a win10 reference image on a VM. Was that system setup as a UEFI system or a BIOS (legacy) system. Its important for 2 reasons.
- To PXE boot that system, the pxe boot loader kernel needs to match the mode the reference image computer is running in.
- When you deploy your captured image, it can only be deployed to a like mode system (i.e. captured uefi -> uefi target computer, captured bios -> bios (legacy mode) target computer).
Now we have seen some cruddy uefi firmware on some systems (like Lenovo) that don’t transition very well between iPXE and FOS (the linux OS that runs on the target computer) where it will hang just after init.xz…
If this happens and you have a Lenovo or any other brand, make sure your firmware version is up to date.
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@dhruvin-t said in WIM files and FOG:
saying “Cannot change image.
Host is in a tasking.”This probably means that you have a running task on the FOG server and it won’t let you adjust the settings with a pending tasks. On the FOG tool tray (in the web ui) select tasks icon. It should show you the running tasks. Remove the task if it has failed to deploy. That should release the image settings.
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I think this clears up a lot of stuff. The VM was built by someone who was let go and now I am going to just rebuild the VM. I will install a fresh MS build 1709 win 10 image with a EFI setting. I will update you guys on what happens next.
Just to confirm machine should NOT be on the domain at any time right?
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@dhruvin-t That is correct, the machine should never attach to AD, or it will get tattooed with things that make cloning not so fun.
While this is a bit off-point. We use MDT to create our reference images. Since we have to create one for bios mode and one for uefi mode, MDT can create 2 identically deployed systems just in different install modes. It also allow us to create updated installs once a quarter with the latest windows updates and then helps us roll out the next CBB release as MS releases it. We just copy over our task sequences to the new OS and can create a new reference image right away. Its something to consider.
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@dhruvin-t Also since you are building a uefi system, then you need to set your iPXE boot loader to ipxe.efi. This would be set in your dhcp server option 67 should be ipxe.efi. If you have this set correct then you should be able to pxe boot into the FOG iPXE menu.
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@george1421 said in WIM files and FOG:
ipxe.efi
My current DHCP is set to undionly.kpxe. So I will change that over to ipxe.efi.
Also talking about MDT. I have the latest build MDT installed. Is there a guide you can reference for me to switch over to that methodology? My new VM is almost ready, is MDT something I install on the VM itself?
