Sysprep on Win 8.1
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Hey All,
Is sysprep absolutely necessary on a windows 8.1 image if it is being deployed to identical hardware?
Thanks
Scott -
Touchy subject…sysprep should be used at least for your licensing. As for drivers and hardware compatibility sysprep is not needed for identical hardware BUT make sure the host is not connected to your AD before uploading.
FYI wifi profiles are not carried across on windows. Use xml files for this.
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We are running a KMS server so the License is just the generic KMS one… That should skirt the licesing issue, correct?
Not hooked up to AD, using FOG for this, and even though we have Wifi… we like gig connection
Thanks for the reply @Wolfbane8653!
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There are lots of Google opinions on this.
It’s there for more than one reason.
The easy answer is Microsoft’s; yes, sysprep.
Emphasized YES if you’re using AD.
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@skotteru I use Active Directory and I deployed a whole lot of Win8.1 machines recently and I don’t sysprep. I maintain one image for each model of PC in my building - this is to keep my images lean and mean and fast - fast to deploy - fast to boot. (5 minute deployment time for 40GB image).
You upload when the client is not on the domain, and use the fog client (Legacy and New works on 8.1) to join the domain after imaging.
But you will find lots of mixed opinions on how to do it.
You know what I say, now? Do what floats your boat, I don’t care lol. I’m maintaining an image per model!
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One issue that is bubbling up from the ether of my memory involves AD and computer account passwords. The computer account password is maintained by the computer on the AD and as part of that identifier it involves the unique ID that the system generated for the OS by coming out of sysprep.
Once you’re comfortable with generating answer files for sysprep it’s really a non-issue, quite easy and worth employing.
Here-say, but I know a story from another administrator that involved an administrator HE knew who deployed an entire headquartered office building without sysprepping the image, which caused nightmares for their software licensing.
Microsoft created it for a reason.
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@sudburr We had a issue with licensing when I first started deploying machines at my job about two years ago.
Most Microsoft product licensing requires a minimum number of unique requests before it allows product activation. So we simply generated a bunch of fake requests and then all was fine. We’ve used this method at four different locations, on probably about 3,000 windows systems - over and over again. And being a school district that has as diverse of software requirements are there are educational areas, we’ve never had a problem.
But again, whatever floats you boat!
