Creating USB Boot Media Problem

[groen]

When saving the offline media task sequence for osd, the usb option does not work if you have a wim over 4gb, which is fat32 limit. Because sccm always reformats it in to fat32. The work around is to use the 8.5gb iso method below it. But that does not work because strangely it still splits the wim file to below 4gb and then it generates a file error on the wim file. I wonder if they ever tried to use the software before they released it because these are big issues. The work around is to use the 8.5gb iso option and then replace the wim file with the original wim file that was added to the osd. Then copy the contents to a usb. On the first go to make sure it was bootable i used the rufus usb software and then afterwards, if i make changes to the task sequence just create another 8.5gb iso and then copy over the changed files and leave the wim on there. Using this method i can deploy an image in 20 mins and it only takes about 20-30 mins to make the usb boot media first time and then only 5 mins to test different task sequence configurations, but could be quicker if using faster pc and network. This means that I can make changes to the task sequence and test a deployment a lot quicker than using pxe boot.

 

It would be nice if the USB method worked with larger wim files and if it was smart enough to only update the files that are changed. So not recreating the entire iso including wim file, if it has not changed.

[binarymime]

Why is your wim so big? Create a base image fully updated with windows patches and then install your packages / applications via software install tasks, that way the wim size limitation won't be an issue and all of the other packages will be included later when cretin the boot media

[groen]

Well that will even further slow down the imaging process and making packages for the all the software is far more work than installing it in to the reference image. If i want to do a quick reimage of someone pc, I don't want to have to wait another 40 mins for it to install all the software and reboot multiple times. This is one of the main benefits for imaging. 4gb is not that big for a wim, the standard wim is close to 3gb. I understand what you are saying but why bother having the 8.5gb option all together if there is no intention of ever having a wim bigger than the reference wim? I also struggle to think of any reason for the capture image process, if you might as well just use the origina wim.

 

The wim has office and other software install that can be tricky to install with packages at times. I only installed the base software that all the different departments have, there is still some software that will be deployed with packages.