SOLVED: How To Build A Windows 10 Image Using SysPrep and Customize the Default Profile

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• Thanks for sharing :-)
  I don't understand Step 12 ; should I boot without a network connection, and how do I "push" the image to the WDS server ? where is it stored ?

  • Hi Paul;

    Sorry for the time lag in getting back to you. You can go to your Windows Deployment Server and manually import the WIM file that you created but personally, I have created an CAPUTURE IMAGE. This sounds complex but it is really easy. see: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11680.creating-a-capture-image-in-wds.aspx

    I hope this helps.

• Hi Folks,
  Thanks for this great article.
  Question: In step 11, is it necessary for sysprep to generalize? I'd like to create an image for a number of same-hardware systems. Prefer not to strip out the HAL. Will the copy profile process from the unattend.xml still work?

  Thanks,
  David

  • Wouldn't the PersistAllDeviceInstalls be the best option for what you are describing?
    This is what we do when deploying to identical batches of hardware so that we can run sysprep with generalize but still keep all of our hardware drivers installed/in place.

    • That sounds like it would work. I have not used it before however. I find that Win10 has so many drivers that I seldom have anything to install after the first Windows Update patch cycle.

      Thanks for the tip :)

  • HI!

    It is NOT required to generalize just to snap the image but if you want to put the machines on the same LAN, they need to be generalized.

    • Thanks alot for your very nice instructions!

      Two little questions:

      1. Why is it necessary to install the Media Creation Tool? I dont understand the use of it... when I choose "Upgrade this PC now" it just aborts..

      2. I syspreped succesfully, but after the first startup this stupid "Hi there. Lets get a few basic things out of the way" and "Express Settings"-Screen appear... how can i skip this settings?

      PS. Sorry to reply to a different post, but I couldn't create a new comment

      • Hi Daniel;

        The Media Creation Tool is not REQUIRED but it is often useful. The MCT will allow you to make a DVD or bootable USB stick with the full Win10 on it. This is helpful if you have multiple machines to upgrade, if you need to perform a bare metal install or if you have a problem with the UPGRADE NOW process. A friend of mine could not get the UPGRADE NOW to complete so I gave him a Win10 DVD I made the with MCT and bingo, he was able to upgrade his Win10.

        I used an answer file to skip / pre-answer most of the setup questions. You can use the MS tools OR you can just user http://windowsafg.no-ip.org/win10x86_x64.html to build your answer file.

        Enjoy and thanks for checking in with us.

• Can you tell me what the "unattend" file brings to the table. While I tried it on a computer, and it did boot ok, I'm not quite sure what options you put in.

  • Hi Bill;

    Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. The unattend is critical IF you want to modify the default profile. Under Win 7 and older you could just modify C:\USERS\DEFAULT and your default user settings (for new users) would be changed. Things like adding desktop icons and wallpapers were soooo easy to change. Under Win8 and now Win10 the only way to change the DEFAULT user profile is to modify the user you working with when you create your SYSPREP and use the true setting in the UNATTEND. This is a pain in the butt.

• Amigo, saludos
  Yo uso la herramienta de sysprep para despliegue de Windows en varios equipos, lo cual ha sido una ventaja excelente.

  Pero tengo un problema, ojala me puedas ayudar.

  Desde que la uso en Windows 7, 8, 8.1 no he tenido ningún problema durante el uso de SYSPREP y tampoco en el despliegue, pero con Windows 10 tengo un problema el final.

  Por ejemplo, instalo Windows 10, después instale la Actualización Acumulativa que está vigente, realizó el proceso de SYSPREP /shutdown /oobe, Lo finaliza perfecto, y lo despliego en el equipo de destino, hago la correspondiente verificación de integridad y todo, pero después de un tiempo cuando lanzan la siguiente Actualización acumulativa, esta no se instala solo llega al 57% y sale el tipico error de "No hemos podido completar las actualizaciones", tambien he instalado el sistema sin instalar ninguna Actualización, lo despliego y se produce el mismo error al instalar un actualización acumulativa.

  Espero me puedan ayudar con este problema, cabe recalcar que con los otros sistemas Windows 7, 8, 8.1 todo se realiza perfectamente.

  • Hi Wilson;

    I have only seen the COULD NOT COMPLETE THE UPDATES once (and that was yesterday on a new machine I imaged in the morning) and in my case it went away after I ran a CHKDSK on the Win 10 PC. The CHKDSK did find and correct several problems on the disk. The cumulative update the worked beautifully.

    • Dear Ian,

      Thank you for the article.

      All seem working except that it takes from 4 - 6 minutes for users to log in the first time. Do you have any suggestions?

      Thank you,
      Binh

      • That is a long time but if you are working on a spinning disk I would not be shocked at that. It has to build a profile/copy from your default. I use only SSD's now and I see it takes about 30 seconds to 1 minute for users to log in the first time.