Windows 10- moving from 1511 to 1607 in audit mode?
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Thanks again for all the replies. I’ve started working on this and have made some progress.
Just wanted to check- what is the ‘best practice’ for Windows activation during the whole process?
For example, should I have the Windows image activated against a MAK key during the build process, and then reactivate against my KMS server when I actually deploy the image?
Thanks
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@mr626 I won’t speak to best practices because each situation is different. But I can say what we do in our environment.
Our reference image is created by MDT, which you might already know. It is rebuilt each quarter with all of the windows updates, and applications. This reference image is never connected to AD or activated. You have 3 days to tweak the image (if necessary) before activation is required. If we miss the window then we just rebuild the reference image with MDT and keep tweaking. In the MDT build we just use the generic WinX key to allow reference image build.
You have 3 basic ways of activating your target image (not reference).
- In the unattend.xml file used to build your target system you can enter the product key right into the unattend.xml file.
- Back in the unattend.xml file, you can use the first logon section synchronous command (assuming you have an autoadmin login setup) to execute the following command
cscript //b c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX - You can run the previous command also in the setupcomplete.cmd batch file.
We use option 2 in our setup for activation.
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4th option - have the FOG Client activate windows for you. There’s a field for product key for every individual host. This is only useful if you’re using MAKs, but it is very useful in that situation. This is how I managed to activate Windows at my last job.
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Maybe I am the only one who can’t figure this out, maybe I’m not and am too stupid to use Google. I have searched all over the place and can’t find what I am looking for.
I am trying to build our first Win 10 image for deployment. I can’t for the life of me find how to edit personalization settings without activating windows. Once in audit mode it tells me that I have to activate windows to personalize my PC. How are other handling this.
I have read of the win 10 thread on this forum, but this part is stumping me.
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@adukes40 What exactly do you want to change?
A lot of what I do is move files manually (via a specifically written script for VM preparation in audit mode) and then run defprof program which will move those changes I made on the admin account (in audit) to the default account.
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mainly backgrounds, colors, Lock Screens, and start menu.
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@adukes40 I don’t know about all of them, but you can make a themepack on your current computer, activate that in audit mode, then run defprof and it should transfer everything that a theme can contain (background for sure, I think colors too).
Not sure what you want to alter about the start menu, if you mean rearranaging stuff and what not, I remember people having trouble with that, not sure if defprof is able to do that for you (mine remains default, so no experience there)
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@adukes40 said in Windows 10- moving from 1511 to 1607 in audit mode?:
mainly backgrounds, colors, Lock Screens, and start menu.
The backgrounds, and colors can be set in the admin account, and then when you sysprep the system reference your unattend.xml file with the copyto setting in the unattend.xml file to copy the settings from the admin account to default user.
As for the start menu that one is a bit tougher and we are still struggling with that one. But basically you need to either create the perfect start menu on a test computer and then export the configuration to an xml file and then have it setup to that when a new user logs into a win10 system the exported menu xml file is imported into the user’s profile. You can also set a registry key to point to this xml file, but it restricts the user from changing/customizing their own menu.
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@george1421 Yes, I don’t use unattend files myself (and I find defprof more reliable than unattend as well), though, so hence the alternative. My start menus aren’t broken on deploy at any rate, which was a huge issue with customizing the start menu without defprof
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@Quazz I’m not familiar with defprof so I need to look into that and learn something new today, thank you for the tip!
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Guess I will try the package idea. So just make a fresh machine thats activated, make changes, export the theme, then import on the audit mode machine?
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@adukes40 said in Windows 10- moving from 1511 to 1607 in audit mode?:
Guess I will try the package idea. So just make a fresh machine thats activated, make changes, export the theme, then import on the audit mode machine?
This is what we did for our win7 base image. Setup the environment exactly like we wanted on a development machine and then exported the theme into a theme pack and loaded the theme pack during some post image deployment tasks.
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@adukes40 Yes. Although according to @george1421 you should be able to make those changes anyway (without themepack)? (I seem to recall being unable to in Windows 8, maybe 10 too though, IT MIGHT DEPEND ON THE VERSION (eg HOME vs ENTERPRISE)
Cool thing about themepack though is that they’re cross compatible on Windows 7 and above (maybe vista too? never tested it)
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@Quazz On Win7 it let you do it, but Win10 won’t do it without activation. Never had to do it with a theme pack. Probably a good idea anyway to keep consistency between remakes of images.
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I am back to my Win 10 machine, and while in audit mode, I cannot set certain settings without windows being Activated. I have tried on LTSB and EDU. EDU give me some extra breathing room, but still cant set lock screens and other settings.
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@adukes40 That stuff we will typically set in the setupcomplete.cmd file once the system has been deployed and OOBE runs. We’ll use MDT (or audit mode) to place all of the files needed on the reference computer before capture but then let the setupcomplete.cmd move the settings into place post deployment.
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@adukes40 At my old job, my co-worker managed the start menu via group policy. So there’s that path.
