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Windows 7 image for many different hardware, good guide in 2017 ?

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  • J
    Jonathan Cool
    last edited by Jan 12, 2017, 7:58 AM

    Hi everybody,
    I want to create my first “golden” image for FOG with different hardware : HP8000, DeLL 7010, DeLL 3020, HP2530 …
    After a Google search, i found this tutoriel :
    https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Create_a_windows_7_image_for_many_different_hardware

    But, in 2017, it’s still works ?

    If the answer is “Yes”, can i do this tutorial with VirutualBOX (free version) instead of VMWare ?

    Many thanks 🙂
    Have a nice day.

    My stuff :
    Server :
    FOG Version : Running Version 1.5.9
    OS : Debian GNU/Linux 10
    FOG Client Version : 0.12
    Specifications :
    > All images are on a Synology NAS storage : mounted with NAS_ip:/images
    > French user :)
    > “If everything would work the first time, what would you have learned?”
    Challenges make knowledge growth … by George1421 ;)

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    • Q
      Quazz Moderator
      last edited by Quazz Jan 12, 2017, 4:15 AM Jan 12, 2017, 10:13 AM

      I create all my images in Virtualbox, so yes it’s possible.

      I don’t recommend creating an unnecessarily large hard drive. Try and figure out how much you’ll need.

      That guide should work, although I personally do things a bit differently in certain parts (such as I don’t use unattend files), but this will depend on your environment.

      There are better ways for handling drivers though. If you have inf based drivers you can place them in a folder in Windows\inf and windows will install them automatically. Of course, for a golden image this would be an enormous folder, which is why a lot of people use Postdownloadscripts to install their drivers.

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      • G
        george1421 Moderator
        last edited by Jan 12, 2017, 10:45 AM

        We do this for both Win7 and Win10. We have a single universal image for all different models of computers we use on our campus. These are all Dell systems but the process would work for other hardware platforms as long as you can get the drivers for the models in inf format and not as a self extracting archive.

        The key is to make your reference image on a virtual machine (I use vmware) with the mimimal number of drivers, sysprep and capture that image with FOG. That becomes your golden/master/mother image. We use MDT to create that reference image so it is consistently built every time since we update our reference image every quarter with the latest OS and application updates. MDT helps us do this so that it is repeatable each time.

        Then during image deployment to the target computers we use fog’s post install script function to write a custom post install script that determines the target computer’s hardware model and then we inject the proper drivers into the target system before the target computer boots into OOBE.

        There are a few discussion/tutorials on this subject.

        https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/8889/fog-post-install-script-for-win-driver-injection
        https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/4278/utilizing-postscripts-rename-joindomain-drivers-snapins
        https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7740/the-magical-mystical-fog-post-download-script
        https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7391/deploying-a-single-golden-image-to-different-hardware-with-fog

        In our environment we use the sysprep / unattend.xml file to name the computer, connect it to the domain instead of the fog client. We have some deployment time unique settings that our post install scripts inject into the unattend.xml file that’s not possible to do with the fog client so that method works out best for us.

        Please help us build the FOG community with everyone involved. It's not just about coding - way more we need people to test things, update documentation and most importantly work on uniting the community of people enjoying and working on FOG!

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        • J
          Jonathan Cool
          last edited by Jan 19, 2017, 1:18 PM

          Many thanks for your reply.
          I think, for the beginning, i will try the Quazz’s advice.

          I will post my experience in this topic later …

          My stuff :
          Server :
          FOG Version : Running Version 1.5.9
          OS : Debian GNU/Linux 10
          FOG Client Version : 0.12
          Specifications :
          > All images are on a Synology NAS storage : mounted with NAS_ip:/images
          > French user :)
          > “If everything would work the first time, what would you have learned?”
          Challenges make knowledge growth … by George1421 ;)

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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