Deploy Windows 7 with Themes and Aero enabled

[zach]

We are deploying Windows 7 with SCCM and I have a build and Capture TS being advertised to a VM and the capturing it. Afterwards I want to deploy this image to all my machine.

 

To Deploy a theme to my image I have tried..The following!

• I have applied a windows color, themename, and background image during the unattend.xml file applied created with WAIK
  
• I have just applied a THEME that I created and deployed to the computer during the build and Capture.
  
• I have ran winsat.exe formal at the end of my TS
  
• I have ran winsat.exe dwm formal during the unattend.xml file at the oobe > First Login commands.
  
• I have applied all of the at once to see if I can get my image to enable Aero.
  

Every time I set the themes I get my background but the windows color is Basic. But as soon as the machine boots up I can go to personalize and change my theme to Windows 7 and aero turns on right away.

I have all the driver that I need to have aero enable but through the TS it will just never enable Aero. Can someone please help. I would like to know how everyone else enable areo through deployment.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Lucid]

It sounds like you might have two issues going on. One is to make sure that Aero is enabled when your deployment is done. And two is to make the theme changes you'd want.

 

So if you remove all your theme customizations and stuff, is Aero enabled the first time you log in? If you look at the bottom of this page: http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/rbennett806/pages/using-sccm-to-capture-and-deploy-windows-7.aspx at Figure 11 you can see the command you need. Make sure you add "formal" for 32-bit, and for 64-bit you'll want to use "C:\Windows\sysnative\WinSAT.exe formal".

 

Once you have Aero enabled, you can try the Unattend.xml stuff, but I know I was never able to quite get what I wanted for our environment. So I made a .THEME package and then cranked out a VBscript to copy it over to the needed folder at the tail end of our TS:.

strScriptFileDirectory = objFSO.GetParentFolderName(wscript.ScriptFullName)

objFSO.CopyFile (strScriptFileDirectory & "\OurTheme.theme"), (SystemDrive & "\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\oem.theme"), True

[zach]

Aero is enabled because if I go through "Personlization" I can click on my aero theme that I deployed to the computer to C:\windows\resources\themes\theme.theme and it will load. But my theme will just not load by default under the default user profile for anyone who logs in.

I added your script to the end of my TS and it copied the file there to the location you gave me but still it selects my unsaved theme that is a Windows Color Basic. I even tried to run your winsat command that you gave me above and it still was basic even though Aero was enabled already.

I have also applied a GPO to apply my custom aero theme and it worked great but we don't really want to use a GPO because we have some machines without this theme installed and it gives the users black screens.

Any other Thoughts?

[zach]

Ok I have figured out my issue I had a some registry files that were messing up my themes and it will now apply the Windows 7 "Aero" theme after deployment but my issue now is that it will not apply my theme that i have created or apply my background. I have copied my themes to "%windir%\Resources" and my background to "%windir%\web\wallpaper\windows\". I am trying to apply my background and theme with an unattend.xml file that was created in WAIK.

After deployment all I get is Sky color and the default windows background.

Any help would be appreciated.

[zach]

I have figured out all the issues with Default Themes and Default Backgrounds. For all wondering how to get you default background and/or theme set I would like to say thanks to rbennett806 from myitforum.com has great explanation on how to do this here is the direct link http://www.myitforum.com/forums/OSD-How-to-set-Corp-backgroundscreensaver-m213992.aspx

 

A brief explanation is to...

Copy your background to %systemroot%\web\wallpaper\windows\IMAGE.JPG

Copy your theme to C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes

---Make when you place your theme in this folder you have to name it "oem.theme"

According to him this is all you need to do to make your theme default.

But I also copied my theme to C:\windows\resources\themes and added it to my unattend.xml file.