Creating Prestaged Image for Hardware Vendor.

[TechWiz]

Hello,

I need to create a prestaged image that I will store on a hard drive for our hardware vendor to have the image already applied on the computers when they arrived to our institution. Then the process will just continue with the rest of the task sequence steps once they arrive onsite. Can someone explain or point me to a written guide on how to accomplish this? Can the prestaged image be set to expire after x amount of time?

 

Thanks in advance.

[jonrowe81]

I would be very interested to see this as well.

 

What we're doing now is a round-about way of getting this done. I manage a school district for ~3000 students, and we're getting closer to our 1:1 student/laptops. We ship the vendor a harddrive from a pre-configured laptop. It has our wireless profiles and everything in it that we require to be on the laptops as they arrive to our site, except:

 

1) proper renaming

2) joined to domain

3) sccm client installed

 

What we've done is written a series of scripts that do the following as soon as we turn on the laptops:

 

1) we click "go" on the desktop, it opens a screen asking what site the laptop will go to. It will then rename the computer with a pre-fix / serial number (example MPHS-R8234kd). then it reboots

2) it auto-logs into the computer, and then runs a script that joins the computer to the domain

3) it then reboots and forces a script to install the sccm client. When it's completed and the sccm client is fully installed/recognized and forefront is installed ready to go, it pops up a message saying job complete.

4) we shut it down and deploy to the classroom.

 

This limits us, as we have to have an image for every single model, which isn't a problem for this b/c we purchase the same model every time. Next time we change models, for the newer one for example, we'll have to send them a new image.

 

If I can learn to do the prestaged content like you're asking, we just have the base OS laid down, turn it on, and it renames/installs software/client/drivers dependent on the model.

 

I would be very interested in seeing how to do this if anyone has a walk-thru or any info on doing so.

[YPCC]

We do this at my clients site. Contact the vendor for more information as each one may have a different method.

 

How it works is you create a regular task sequence, then make prestaged media using that. Once the vendor has it they apply it to all the hardware and ship it out. When you recieve the hardware you connect a network cable (so it can seesccm and also join domain etc) and let it run. All the content is on the harderive already so no pxe/usb media required. Best bit is from within sccm you can then edit the task sequence. So for example you can add a new driver package.

 

Then what will happen is the prestaged machine will startup, conect to sccm and see there is a driver package available and download it. So this way it uses a mixture of packages on the hard drive but also downloads newer packages as and when needed. This avoids the need of having to constantly send your prestage image to the vendor.

 

The only time you need to send your vendor a updated prestage image is if you want to up the .Wim itself. Other than that it is very modular.

[TechWiz]

I found this link which is kind of what I was looking for. I just have to try to make some sense out it and put it to the test on my VirtualBox VM.

https://sccmguy.com/2014/08/15/creating-prestaged-image-using-configuration-manager-2012-r2/

[jonrowe81]

YPCC : do you happen to have a task sequence like this already you could possibly share the steps? That usually helps me a lot if possible, so I can put a logical order to it. Thanks!