Hi,
I'm using MDT 2012 to do something quite simple; 1) Deploy Windows 7 Vanilla to a Client PC, 2) Customise the Start Menu, 3) Capture image of Client PC, 4) Deploy to different Client PC.
I have 3 task sequences in MDT 2012 which are self-explanitory; 1) DeployVanilla, 2) CaptureImage, 3) DeployCustomImage - Each has it's own unattend.xml file within the\\server\deploymentshare$\control\<taskname> folder but I'm not sure which one I should be adding values such as <copyprofile> to?
Here is what I have observed:
Amending unattend.xml in CAPTURE sequence only; Once I have deployed and customised the Refernece PC I run\\server\deploymentshare$\script\LTIxx.vbs from within Windows to kick-off the capture sequence. A few things happen and Sysprep starts. Now I quickly navigated to the c:\windows\system32\sysprep folder on the reference machine and opened Unattend.xml and noticed that this had been copied from the capture sequence on the deployment server and contained the values I had set, such as <copyprofile>true <skiprearm>1 etc... Great I though, then the system reboots, goes into WindowsPE and captures a .WIM to the server. After capture, the reference PC reboots, goes through the "Starting Windows for the first time" business and hey presto the Start Menu is still customised. Brilliant I thought, is captured an image and syspreped using the values I had set!!!
However, when I deploy my CAPTURE.WIM to another client PC, it goes through the "Starting Windows for the first time" business, but this time the Start Menu icons are back to default! This leads me to belive it had been syspreped, but had not read the unattend.xml
So I amended the unattend.xml in the DEPLOYCUSTOMIMAGE sequence also, and when I deploy my custom image now everything is set perfectly.
So why am I boring you with all this? Well I'd like to understand why this is happening; Does this mean that the image is Syspreped just before Capture and then again during Deployment? Or is it syspreped with the capture - unattend.xml and then when deployed does it merge with the deploy - unattend.xml
It seems mad that I have to specify the same settings in both unattend.xml files.
I look forward to you thoughts...
Thanks,
Matt Courtman, Network Manager, Cromwell Community College, UK