Workstation Imaging on a Budget

There are a ton of great tools out there for image deployment. There's the actual deployment tool like Microsoft's SMS/SCCM, Symantec's Ghost Suite, Novell's ZCM, etc..., then there's utilities like Big Bang's UIU that help with driver support. All these programs have one thing in common; they're all expensive!

As I've said before, I work in state government. I am just a lowly IT worker who has no political swing, so when we made some changes few years ago that 'broke' image deployment solution, I was left without the tools I needed to do my job, and without the time/money/know-how to get it done. It was then that I started looking for something free that get us by until we could purchase something.

What I found surprised me, because the last place I expected to find a free imaging solution was from Microsoft. Here's what you need:

Windows PE/Bart's PE: The PE stands for "Preinstallation Environment". You must be able to boot your PC from a source other than the hard drive you plan on imaging to/from.

Imagex: This is a utility Microsoft released with Vista for imaging. It is a command line tool that creates .wim image files. It does file based imaging, and has many cool features we will get in to later.

Sysprep: Good old Sysprep... This is used to generalize an image by wiping out the identifiers that tie the OS to that specific hardware. It is the key in making a hardware agnostic image.

Drivers: One of the coolest sites on the whole entire internet is "Driverpacks.net". They have a huge collection of drivers that they make available for free. They update their collection very regularly. If you have a wide variety of hardware you want an image to be compatible with, they're the way to go.

So here's how the pieces all fit together:

I start out by choosing a "standard PC" to start. I like to choose something that has a functional NIC and Mass Storage Controller straight off the Windows Install disc. Once I have selected my PC I install Windows, the applications I want, and configure the PC, all logged in as the local Admin.

Next I download the latest driverpacks from driverpacks.net. After I decompress them, I go through the list and get rid of some of the drivers I know I won't be using for sure. I have a VBScript I will share later that goes through and reorganizes the files that Driverpacks.net gives you to the directory structure that you need for Sysprep.

Next I sysprep the workstation, and tell it to shutdown when I'm done.

After the PC powers down, I put in my PE cd/usb boot device (this could be done through PXE if you want) and boot the PC to the CD. I run imagex and capture the image to a network share.

To test the build/capture, I grab a different PC, boot it to PE, use Imagex to apply the image I just captured, and then reboot the PC. If it works, It is on to our testing group and out of my hands.

I will go through how each of these steps work, and more importantly how you can make them work for you later. I have many scripts that I wrote to make the tedious/complicated parts much easier. Thanks.

About me:

I have spent the last 6 years working for state government creating and maintaining workstation images. The job can be very tedious, as anyone who has done it for any amount of time knows.

When creating workstation images, there is a lot of busy work involved. Supporting drivers and applications for dozens of workstations with dozens of purposes can easily consume all of your time. After years of just barely getting one thing done only to find another need waiting, I decided it was time to be proactive. I decided to go for the 'Holy Grail' of workstation imaging: One image to rule them all...

Through this blog I hope to share some of my experience and hopefully prevent a few headaches.