Hi,
I'm trying to use MDT 2012. My end goal is to deploy a 'thick' Windows 7 x86 image. I know this is not the prefered method, but I have some old applications that need some tweaking to work and they cannot be deployed by MDT/SCCM.
I can deploy a Vanilla Windows 7 .wim to a client PC no problem, I have an MS SQL DB setup on the server with MAC addresses/PC names, so after deployment it names the client PC and joins to the domain. This is works very nicely.
However, my problem is capturing an image of the reference PC. This is what I am doing:
1. I install Windows 7 x86 from DVD media onto the client reference PC which has 1 HDD installed. The Windows installation creates 2 partitions, 1: System Reserved (100mb) no drive letter, 2: C: drive (rest of disk space)
2. I Install applications, updates, change a few settings and perform tweaks etc...
3. I sysprep the reference client PC with /generalise and specify an answer file (I know the answer file to be correct) with all the required settings, and the PC shuts down
4. I PXE boot the client reference PC and select the Capture sequence which has all Sysprep settings disabled (as I have already syspreped the image)
The capture sequence starts and looks promising but after a shortwhile it fails due to lack of disk space.
I have done some reading on the Internet and the problem seems to be MDT 2012 is trying to copy the WindowsPE image to the 100mb System Reserved partition but this is too small and so it fails. This makes sense as the WindowsPE image is a tad over 100mb.
If I delete the system partition on the reference PC, leaving only one partition on the HDD and then attempt to capture, this works fine. I thought problem solved. However when I then deploy this reference image to a client PC after it installs it doesn't finish the sequence and so is not named and domained.
I have read suggestions to increase the size of the system reserved partition to 300mb but don't seem to be able to do this.
Can anyone suggest what I should try?
Many thanks,
Matt
Matt Courtman, Network Manager, Cromwell Community College, UK