how can I CAPTURE an Image using WDS

[anyweb]

This guide assumes you have already setup WDS as described here

 

Part 1 - add boot.wim to WDS

 

 

Step 1. Get your Windows Vista DVD ready.

 

Step 2. Insert the DVD and start WDS (windows deployment services) gui.

 

 

Step 3. In the Left Pane of WDS, select boot images

 

Step 4. In the Right Pane, right click the mouse and choose 'Add Boot Image'.

 

Step 5. In the Add Image Wizard, click the Browse button and browse to the Sources folder on your Vista DVD that you inserted in Step 2.

 

 

Step 6. Highlight the file called boot.wim and click Open, once done Click Next

 

 

Step 7. In the next window, change the Image name from "Microsoft Windows Longhorn Setup (x86)" to 'WDS - Windows XP/Vista Deployment'

 

Step 8. Change the image description to 'WDS to capture/deploy images from windows-noob.com'

 

Step 9. Click next to review the settings, and next again to proceed.

 

 

Step 10. After the file copying is complete click on Finish.

 

[anyweb]

Part 2 - create Capture file

 

Step 1. Highlight the 'WDS - Windows XP/Vista Deployment' image name in the right pane of the WDS gui (this is the image you just created in Part 1 above).

 

Step 2. Right-click on it, and choose Create Capture Boot Image

 

 

Step 3. In the next Windows (capture image metadata) leave the Image Name and Image Descriptions alone, and click on the Browse button.

 

Step 4. Browse to the RemoteInstall\Boot\X86\Images folder (or X64 if using X64), this folder is part of the original WDS setup.

 

Step 5. Give the filename you are about to create a name eg: RemoteInstall\Boot\X86\Images\windows-noob_capture and click open, then click next, the wizard will auto append .WIM to the filename.

 

 

Step 6. The wizard will now start to extract the image from the source image file.

 

 

Once it is complete, click Finish.

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2a - add Capture file to WDS

 

Step 1. In WDS, select Boot Images in the left pane.

 

Step 2. in the Right Pane (in an empty area) right-click and choose Add Boot Image

 

Step 3. In the add image file window, browse to RemoteInstall\Boot\X86\Images and select the capture file you created above, click open and then next.

 

 

Step 4. set the Image name to 'Windows Vista/XP WDS capture' and the Image description to 'WDS to capture images from windows-noob.com', click next.

 

 

Step 5. Review the choices and click next to add this capture boot image.

 

 

once done WDS will look like this

 

[anyweb]

Part 3 - PXE boot target computer and capture image

 

Step 1. Ensure that PXE boot is enabled in boot sequence, and PXE boot (using your onboard NIC) to the WDS server. Press F12 when prompted for Network Service boot.

 

Step 2. In the Windows Boot Manager Menu, select Windows Vista/XP WDS Capture from the available options.

 

Step 3. After Windows PE has booted, you should see a welcome screen which says

 

Welcome to the Windows Deployment Services Image Capture Wizard.

 

Click next to begin.

 

If you do not see this welcome screen (for example if you see an Install Windows wizard with keyboard layout options) then power off the computer and re-attempt step 1.

 

 

Step 4. Image capture source:

 

There are three options here, Volume to capture, Image name, and image description.

 

Note:-If the Volume to Capture drop down menu appears blank (ie: you can't select anything) then verify that you have Sysprepped the image you are trying to capture.

 

In addition, You must sysprep using the generalize switch (Vista ONLY). After sysprepping with the /generalize switch it will show up.

 

For XP, simply regenerate the SID and choose RESEAL.

 

If you need to sysprep the machine then read this guide and return to part 3 when ready.

 

If volume to capture still doesnt show up after sysprepping with the /generalize switch then perhaps WinPE may need storage drivers (SATA). To verify this, once you're in WinPE, press Shift+F10 and see if you can see the hard drive.

 

For Volume to Capture, select C:\ from the drop down menu (will not be present unless you have SYSPREPPED)

For Image Name call it 'Windows Vista Ultimate Capture' (if you are capturing Windows XP, change accordingly)

For Image Description, enter 'WDS - Windows (vista/xp) captured image for windows-noob.com'

 

Step 5. Image Capture Destination:

 

Here you have the possibility of storing the image on a drive (local) by choosing Name and Location, and clicking Browse and giving the image a filename, the wizard will auto-append .wim to the file name eg: c:\test_capture.wim.

 

Next you want to upload the image directly to your WDS server by putting a check mark in the 'Upload Image to WDS server' option, you will have to provide the servername (or use the ip address eg: 192.168.3.1) and then click on the connect button. After some moments you'll be prompted with a username/password prompt for connecting to the server. I entered Administrator as the user and entered the correct password and selected 'remember my password', followed by 'ok'. If you do not get prompted for username/password and it complains about not finding the server then read here.

 

Once you have successfully connected to the server you may get an error which states:-

 

"There is no image group on the WDS server '192.168.3.1'. Please use WDS Management to create an image group."

 

If you do not get this error, skip to Step 6.

To resolve this error simply go back into the WDS management gui, and select 'Install Images' in the left pane. In the right pane that opens, right-click your mouse and choose 'Add Image Group'. Give this group the name 'WDS XP captures' and retry the above step (5). Obviously if you are capturing Windows Vista, change the group name accordingly.

 

 

Once you've added the image group it will appear in the WDS gui like the below screenshot

 

 

Step 6. you will now see the 'Image Group Name' option on the Windows Deployment Services Image Capture Wizard allows you to drop down the menu, and from here you can select the captured images group you created above.

 

Step 7. Click Finish to continue (and capture the image). The image capture wizard will start capturing the image and you'll see a 'Percent Complete: x%' dialogue box.

 

Step 8. After a fairly long while of file copying, Click Close to conclude the image capture process, congratulations you've captured an image using WDS !

 

Please note, that at this point Windows PE will exit and the computer will reboot, if you don't want it to boot into sysprep then you'll have to be quick and turn it off at the bios screen.

 

 

 

 

If everything went well as above, the captured image will have been copied to D:\RemoteInstall\Images\captured images (change the drive letter to match your RemoteInstall drive and obviously the last folder name will change if you use a different image group name), in addition it will be stored locally on the computer you captured the image on (c:\test_capture.wim)

 

Here are the contents of my captured images folder:-

 

Directory of D:\RemoteInstall\Images\captured images

 

11/14/2007 04:08 PM <DIR> .

11/14/2007 04:08 PM <DIR> ..

11/14/2007 04:15 PM 2,485,945,229 Res.RWM

11/14/2007 04:15 PM 2,297,798 test_capture.wim

2 File(s) 2,488,243,027 bytes

2 Dir(s) 11,278,798,848 bytes free

 

 

 

 

 

At this point you will probably want to Deploy the captured image, to find out how you can do that read this post.

[Chaudry]

thanks man its very nice

[nilesf]

Okay. I have followed every step twice. I am unable to see the either the "boot" or "capture" imageun the PXE menu. Please note that my WDS is also maanging legacy RIS images as well.

 

 

Thanks,

Niles

[gtopple]

"Step 1. Ensure that PXE boot is enabled in boot sequence, and PXE boot (using your onboard NIC) to the WDS server. Press F12 when prompted for Network Service boot."

 

I can't get a boot menu the error I get is:

PXE-E53: No boot filename received

PXE-M0F: Exiting intel boot agent.

 

I check my OU and removed all firewall policies to take that out of the equation and received the same message.

Any ideas how to solve this?

[anyweb]

in order to troubleshoot your problem i need more info about what you've done and how your network is setup

etc..

[gtopple]

in order to troubleshoot your problem i need more info about what you've done and how your network is setup

etc..

All items related to Vista x86 and x64 have been solved! Thanks anyweb

[anyweb]

so what was the solution then in case others might have a similar problem ?

[gtopple]

so what was the solution then in case others might have a similar problem ?

The PXE Responce Settings was not set to Respond to all known and unknown client computers. This solved the issue. Now to inject drivers to a captured image to make it universal...

[dumamo]

A question to anyweb,

We are good with the initial capturing of an image. What we cannot find is a good answer to the best way to update or replace a existing image. We are required to update these regularly because of patches and software updates.

 

What I see them doing now is they capture the new image pretty much as you described and give it a new name. Then they delete the old image from the server via the WDS interface. It works in that they capture their new image, but it seems to grow the RWM each time (unnecessarily in my mind). I believe they think deleting it will reduce its size, but what appears to happen is it get larger. I am trying to replicate all images across sites, but found DFSr does not replicate delta changes only on RWMs, it replicates the whole file each time. So this method has grown an RWM to 30GB at one point! I have read in replacing images in the console, but it seems to require capturing, exporting and replacing which does not seem the best way to do it.

 

I am convinced we are not using WDS correctly or efficiently and I think re-capturing/updating is the biggest issue. Do you have the information or could you point me to a good source on the topic of updating existing images? If you know of ways to modify the images on the server ala driver injection etc please let me know as well. I have done it with a boot.wim, but not sure if the same applies to standard images.

 

Details

2 WDS on Server 2008 64 bit in two separate locations.

Capturing Windows XP images that we sysprep and use an internal unattend to configure.

Replicating the Remoteinstall folder, excluding the boot, tmp and mgmt folders per MS recommendation.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.