Reference image creation

[rob343]

HI

 

Just wanted peoples opinion on how I am currently doing my Ref image, At the moment I do this in a standalone MDT/WSUS, capture then import into sccm where I add business apps during TSQ, is this still the preferred way. but it means I have to maintain WSUS as well as MDT.

Or should I be doing I in sccm and capturing, or even with an MDT interrogated task seq and capture?  

Are there any issues in which the context it creates the image with i.e. Administrator (MDT) System (SCCM)

thanks 

Rob

 

 

 

 

 

 

[anyweb]

we are just using the default install.wim and not capturing anything, we deploy that with whatever changes we need in the upgrade and deploy task sequences

what deployment scenarios are you dealing with and why do you think you need to capture an image ?

[Hotzenwalder]

We are still using a reference image because we want to deploy a new system as fast as possible. The step that usually took the most time in the deployment was bringing the system up to date with patches. I know you can inject Windows patches into the WIM, but since you mentioned you are using the default WIM I guess you are not injecting updates. What also takes a lot of time is Office 2016 updates. To my knowledge you cannot inject those into the WIM because there is no Office in the WIM. The alternative might be to streamline your Office installation with updates.

But...  instead we've created a VM were we installed a reference Windows 10 machine with Office 2016 and most needed C++ libraries (according to this guide: http://deploymentresearch.com/Research/Post/613/Building-a-Windows-10-v1703-reference-image-using-MDT )

The base image is updated with all the needed updates before we capture the custom WIM. We also create a checkpoint in Hyper-V before we create a new capture so the next month we can just revert to last version of the image and update it again.
So far this has worked quite well for us, but we are always open for any suggestions making it easier or faster to deploy or Windows 10 image.

[anyweb]

we use offline servicing in Configmgr to patch the install.wim file with the latest available CU

[Hotzenwalder]

56 minutes ago, anyweb said:

we use offline servicing in Configmgr to patch the install.wim file with the latest available CU

And if during the TS Office is installed how do you keep the deployment time at the lowest while keeping the system as up to date as possible after deployment?

[rob343]

We are doing an image capture primarily for speed of deployment, so we include Office 2013, Adobe, C++, and a few other bits,  and then full updates, office/security from standalone WSUS separate from the WSUS that services sccm.  I am just trying to streamline and see if I can do it al from SCCM then I don't need to maintain MDT and a secondary WSUS instance.  We also do all ref image in VM. 

[anyweb]

8 hours ago, Hotzenwalder said:

And if during the TS Office is installed how do you keep the deployment time at the lowest while keeping the system as up to date as possible after deployment?

we patch office after the task sequence is finished

[anyweb]

7 hours ago, rob343 said:

We are doing an image capture primarily for speed of deployment, so we include Office 2013, Adobe, C++, and a few other bits,  and then full updates, office/security from standalone WSUS separate from the WSUS that services sccm.  I am just trying to streamline and see if I can do it al from SCCM then I don't need to maintain MDT and a secondary WSUS instance.  We also do all ref image in VM. 

of course you can do it using ConfigMgr, most people do it using MDT as it's quick and easy and well documented

[devanshu]

Hi,

I am new to Windows deployment using SCCM and would greatly appreciate any inputs.

Purpose (for over 500 machines)-

1. Upgrade existing systems from Windows 7 to 10

2. Setup task sequences to push updates/ software installations to these systems

I have created a couple of .wim images and tried pushing it through task sequence, but it fails continuously. I have extracted logs but am unable to identify solutions for the same - getting multiple errors on 'Install OS' step.

I am not using MDT so far, but am open to using it. 

Tagging @rob343 @anyweb for advice.

Regards,

Devanshu

Edited June 6, 2017 by devanshu
Update tags

[pascal08]

In our Migration Projects we had a lot of customers, for whom the installation speed was also very important.

 

But they didn’t want to build and maintain a MDT and separate WSUS Infrastructure.

 

That’s why we came up with https://wimasaservice.ch/en

 

WimAsAService has a simple Web fronted, where our customers can configure their desired Images, start a generation process and later download the WIM-Files and a Documentation.

 

In the background is a highly automated MDT Infrastructure.

[Rocket Man]

Same as Niall - vanilla wim - all LOB software deployed as part of the TS - office updated after the OS install.

Every 3 months use the offline servicing component to inject available updates for wim for future deployments.