Sysprep answer file.....WHY!?!?!?

Hello,

I'm still trying to get Windows Vista to work with the answer file I built
and so I did a little bit of research and found an article that basically
said that the XML file has 7 passes but it only pays attention to pass 4
(specialize) and pass 7 (OOBE). Also, this article mentions that certain
settings have to be put in certain passes for them to work. I have not tried
any of this as of yet but why won't Microsoft just make this easy? People
are going to use this tool and go crazy because it won't work. The guy who
wrote the article spent a whole lot of time doing trial and error.

Also, sysprep will only run one time before you get a fatal error.
Microsoft has a fix, which I got from them and applied but it does not fix
the problem. How are we supposed to test our answer files??? The website
for the above mentioned article is http://www.minasi.com.

Any thoughts or hellp would be appreciated

Thaanks,
Rich

Have you read the OPK userguide? It's a very extensive document, and it
explains in the introduction how to use the tool. As well, in the WSIM
program, you can right-click on any item and it click help and it explains
what that function/component does. The answerfile uses all 7 sections of the
file - the author must have gotten that wrong. For example, it most
certainly uses the WinPE pass. Each pass does a different job, you can skip
AuditUser and AuditSystem if you don't need those passes though of course
and leave them empty.

I'd start by sitting down and reading the help file, and then you should get
a better understanding of what you are doing.

Cheers


"Rich Martinez (RRCC)" <RichMartinezRRCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:440FFB47-4040-4CEE-B00E-CEAD31785125@microsoft.com...
> Hello,
>
> I'm still trying to get Windows Vista to work with the answer file I built
> and so I did a little bit of research and found an article that basically
> said that the XML file has 7 passes but it only pays attention to pass 4
> (specialize) and pass 7 (OOBE). Also, this article mentions that certain
> settings have to be put in certain passes for them to work. I have not
> tried
> any of this as of yet but why won't Microsoft just make this easy? People
> are going to use this tool and go crazy because it won't work. The guy
> who
> wrote the article spent a whole lot of time doing trial and error.
>
> Also, sysprep will only run one time before you get a fatal error.
> Microsoft has a fix, which I got from them and applied but it does not fix
> the problem. How are we supposed to test our answer files??? The website
> for the above mentioned article is http://www.minasi.com.
>
> Any thoughts or hellp would be appreciated
>
> Thaanks,
> Rich

Okay, I glanced briefly through that article. From what I saw, the author is
simply explaining how to set the OOBE pass so that the end-user doesn't have
to go through the first run steps (entering username, password, locale
etc.). The author it seems wants to deploy the system in a ready-to-boot in
2 minutes state. I'm not sure what sort of environment this person is
deploying into but I can't see why he's going through such hassle to specify
each and every little detail for the end-user. For example, end-users should
accept the EULA themselves, and they must enter their own product key. If
you specifiy a unique product key, and that system is sent out to person A
who activates, and then you deploy the same image file to person B and they
try to activate it won't work. And why not let users enter their own
password, username and pick their own options for Vista?

The only reason I can see this guy using sysprep in this manner is either
for playing around, or he's deploying inside a lab where he wants all his
systems to have the same username/password etc.)


"Duncan" <duncan@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:%23HDOLaotHHA.1204@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Have you read the OPK userguide? It's a very extensive document, and it
> explains in the introduction how to use the tool. As well, in the WSIM
> program, you can right-click on any item and it click help and it explains
> what that function/component does. The answerfile uses all 7 sections of
> the file - the author must have gotten that wrong. For example, it most
> certainly uses the WinPE pass. Each pass does a different job, you can
> skip AuditUser and AuditSystem if you don't need those passes though of
> course and leave them empty.
>
> I'd start by sitting down and reading the help file, and then you should
> get a better understanding of what you are doing.
>
> Cheers
>
>
> "Rich Martinez (RRCC)" <RichMartinezRRCC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> in message news:440FFB47-4040-4CEE-B00E-CEAD31785125@microsoft.com...
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm still trying to get Windows Vista to work with the answer file I
>> built
>> and so I did a little bit of research and found an article that basically
>> said that the XML file has 7 passes but it only pays attention to pass 4
>> (specialize) and pass 7 (OOBE). Also, this article mentions that certain
>> settings have to be put in certain passes for them to work. I have not
>> tried
>> any of this as of yet but why won't Microsoft just make this easy?
>> People
>> are going to use this tool and go crazy because it won't work. The guy
>> who
>> wrote the article spent a whole lot of time doing trial and error.
>>
>> Also, sysprep will only run one time before you get a fatal error.
>> Microsoft has a fix, which I got from them and applied but it does not
>> fix
>> the problem. How are we supposed to test our answer files??? The
>> website
>> for the above mentioned article is http://www.minasi.com.
>>
>> Any thoughts or hellp would be appreciated
>>
>> Thaanks,
>> Rich
>