Posts made by andyroo54

Maybe this is already known, and maybe it’s the wrong section, please move if so.

Hi,

So I thought I’d share a problem and solution I came across, well it’s not really a fault with Fog, the problem is unknown to me but seems to be VMware related, but it caused by a process that is really nessecary when making an image for many computers. OK, so here is the scenario, you are happy with your image (win 7), and you want to cut the size down as much as possible of C:, before before finalizing it for upload.

So you can PXE boot and select a disk management tool, in my case I use “parted magic” from menu.

You cut the size down for example, the original VM disk was 60GB, and you cut it down to 30GB. You then reboot. The drive is now 30GB on C and 30GB unallocated.

So now you can finish and upload the image to Fog. But what if something doesnt work during the sysprep? What if it prompts you for time settings because your unattend file is wrong? So you try to revert snapshot right? Well if you do the machine will just BSOD constantly. I think because you have changed the disk in windows but the reverted snapshot can’t tell this. It still thinks it has 60GB partition.

I also tried re sizing the partition again to it’s old size but the drive tools wouldn’t load.

So what you can do? Well, you would think the best thing to do would be that, after you have resized the partition, you should create a snapshot right? Well you can’t! At least with VMware, I haven’t tested other virtual software. You will constantly get “VMWare failed to lock the file”. Bummer!

So what can you do? Well, power off the virtual machine, then simply clone it! You will now have a perfectly working clone with a small partition, ready for further deployment testing, and you can start making snapshots again!

Thanks and I hope maybe this can help someone else that might find themselves in my situation!

[quote=“Ahmed, post: 840, member: 113”]you need definitely to seperate the xml files. it didn’t work for me when i chose one xml file. as running the audit mode with unattend.xml will run some of the settings that should be run on the generalize mode and i lost one of the administrator logins " i have 3 logins after the generalize". i dont know why but it worked for me when i separated the files.[/quote]

Hi Ahmed,

Thanks, so you have one unattend.xml, then do you put the audit.xml in the same location as the unattend.xml? and add it to the script? So the audit and unattend files go to the C:\windows \system32\sysprep? Should that be syswow for 64 bit? Ok so you specify that I should have sepeate xml for driver yes?

So this is currently the components I had set for drivers, in my original unattend.xml.

Are you saying I should remove them, and create a new file called audit.xml and add the same components as below in the picture, and that should work?

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/29_unattnd.JPG?:”]unattnd.JPG[/url]

Hi,

So I’m just trying to understand why you have that seperate “audit.xml” file? I’ve made my unattend.xml file, and I’ve got this as part of the unattend:
AMD64_microsoft-windows-PnpCustomizationsWinPE_neutral
Then I choose driver paths,
Then I set the path and network credentials, but this didn’t seem to work.

Does this have to be seperate in the “audit.xml” file?

Hi,

So a few people viewed this but had no guess at the problem, so I thought I should post this as a response, I solve the problem, or rather figured out what was causing the problem.

The hard drive controller was SCSI, not IDE! I did not know when starting to make my image that for fog to work it has to be IDE, none of the resources I was following mentioned this. I did find a page once I figured out the problem, which had once sentence on it saying don’t use SCSI for VM.

So I will just rebuild the image. Hopefully in the future others don’t have this problem. Maybe this is a very obvious fact for some but for me I didn’t even consider it. I really should have registered my VM host with FOG before I even started building the image, but I didn’t. I have now, and will not make that mistake again!

Anyone?

I seem to be able to register an XP machine ok?

Hi there,

So I’ve 99% finished my win 7 image, and I’m getting it ready to upload to FOG, but I tried to register it as a host, but there seems to be a problem with this, as it doesn’t seem to recognize the virtual machine?? I was under the impression you could make the image in a Virtual machine then upload to fog?

Here are the errors I’m getting:

[ATTACH=full]23[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=full]24[/ATTACH]

Then after that I get the “Hard drive not found!”,

I’m using win 7 professional running as a Virtual Machine in VMware workstation 8.

Thanks for any help!

[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/22_Fog project 1.jpg?:”]Fog project 1.jpg[/url][url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/24_fog project 3.jpg?:”]fog project 3.jpg[/url][url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/23_fog project 2.jpg?:”]fog project 2.jpg[/url]

I would rather use the xml file to point to the server share location, but how does it scan the hardware? Does it do this without any add ons?

Hi,

So I’m still fairly new to Fog. Everything was setup by the last guy prior to my arrival. I’ve learnt a fair amount, however currently we only have XPSP3 image in Fog. Now from what I’ve seen the drivers are on a shared network location where SAD is with some drivers.

Look basically I’m looking for the best way to have win 7 pro X64 install by itself, scan the hardware and install appropriate drivers from a network location. I read somewhere that DPISNT may have to be 64 bit version?

Can someone please point me to some documentation that details how to configure 7 to get these appropriate drivers? I was going to point “MW pnp customizationsWinPE” Driver paths, PathandCredentials, then point it to the network share location? Would that work? Or should I use this DPINST tool?

Any help would be much appreciated, thankyou.

HI yes I’ve seen that but he doesn’t explain how he does drives, he just installs them in the image. How do all the Fog guys do it?

Also another stupid question, I’ve made my unattend XML file, but where do I put it? Do I put it into the drive AFTER I’ve created the VM and running in audit mode??

Hi, which part of the componets do you configure to support all CPU types? So you can’t make the computer point to a network file share during imaging for drivers?

Hi,

So I’ve tried searching but can’t find much. If someone could point me in the right direction that would be good. Currently we have a win XP sp3 soe that deploys and scans hardware then gets drivers. This was all setup by the person that worked here previously. He has done a very good job with Xp, and we will continue to use that SOE for some time on older hardware. Fog is great for this.

But I’ve just started working on a win 7 image. I want to have it cut down as possible, without all the drivers in the image. So I understand that it’s possible that during sysprep you can tell the image to search a certain location for drivers, so I would have a file share with the drivers packs on it.

So this is what I’m hoping to do, I’m building the image up as a VM. I have tried to find some info on it but it is fairly scattered. Most people I talk to use MDT or similar.

While writing this I’ve just found a link to this wiki;

[url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Create_a_windows_7_image_for_many_different_hardware[/url]

I’ve read through it and looks like it might solve my problem. But I’d still like to get some thoughts and any suggestions to make the process smooth. I will also post anything up I encounter! If there is a better section for this please move as I’m new and wasn’t sure if this was the right section…

This looks like a good guide too, will have to do some reading!

[url]http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/2224[/url]

Thanks, !!!