Preparing the Operating System for Replication
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You must prepare a master image that can be duplicated once your appliance is working as desired on the target development hardware. SysPrep.exe and other tools are stored in a .cab file named DEPLOY.cab. This file is located on the Microsoft® Windows Server 2003 CD in a directory named \SUPPORT\TOOLS.
To run these tools, create a directory named SysPrep in the root of the system drive on the target machine and then extract all of the files contained in the .cab file into this directory. After running SetupMgr.exe, a file named sysprep.inf is created in the SysPrep directory. This directory and all of the files in it are automatically deleted after the first boot. For more information, see the documentation that accompanies SysPrep in the .cab file.
To prepare the server appliance for manufacture
Create an operating system image on your target system that will be replicated.
Create the directory %systemdrive%\Sysprep.
Copy all files from the \Support\Tools\deploy.cab file on the Windows Server 2003 CD into the \Sysprep directory.
Run SetupMgr.exe.
Note that replication of an image based on the Server Appliance Kit does not have specific requirements for most of the pages in this wizard. The following steps call out the wizard pages where there are specific requirements.
On the New or Existing Answer File page, click Create new, and then click Next.
Click SysPrep setup, and then click Next.
Click Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (or Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition), and then click Next.
Click Yes, fully automate the installation, and then click Next.
Type the default host name of the appliance, and then click Next.
If you are using the SAConfig utility to automatically configure the cloned images to generate a unique computer name on first boot, then the computer name you enter must match the \defaulthostname registry value described in Customizing SAConfig.
Type the default administrator password, and then click Next.
If you are using the SAConfig utility to automatically configure the cloned images to generate a unique administrator password on first boot, then the administrator password you enter must match the \defaultadminpassword registry value described in Customizing SAConfig.
On the Sysprep Folder page, click Yes, create or modify the Sysprep folder, and then click Next.
On the Additional Commands page, type the name of any commands you want to run on each cloned image on first boot, and then click Add, and then click Next.
If you are using the SAConfig utility to automatically configure the cloned image, you must type the full path to the saconfig.exe file with appropriate command-line arguments as described in Customizing Auto Configuration. For example, if you copied the saconfig.exe and OEMConfigDLL.DLL into a folder called saconfig on the C: drive and you want to automatically configure both the host name and administrator password, then you would type C:\saconfig\saconfig.exe -hostname-adminpass.
Edit sysprep.inf to include your OEM Product Identification (PID) number. Doing this ensures that no console input is required on the first boot of the machine. Your sysprep.inf file should resemble the following code example.
;This sysprep.inf causes the mini Setup Wizard to run unattended and ;configure the system without user intervention.
[Unattended] OemSkipEula=Yes ExtendOemPartition=1 InstallFIlesPath=C:\sysprep
[GuiUnattended] TimeZone=004 AdminPassword=* OEMSkipRegional=1 OEMSkipWelcome=1
[LicenseFilePrintData] AutoMode=PerSeat
[GuiRunOnce] ;list of programs to be run once after first logon.
[RegionalSettings]
[UserData] FullName="Product Name" OrgName="Company Name" ComputerName="*" ProductID=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX ;OEM PID here
[networking] ;No changes required
[identification] joinworkgroup=workgroup
Close all applications.
Run sysprep.exe. This will place the operating system onto an image file and shut down the system. The hard disk is now ready for imaging.