create image for Vista

Hi,

I have been reading a lot of about the new imaging service from Vista,
it appears that the imaging service is only good for deploying new Vista
installation. According to Microsoft documentation, it said You must not
use Sysprep to reconfigure an existing installation of Windows that has
already been deployed. Use Sysprep only to configure new installations
of Windows. So, what if I want to image an existing installation of
Windows Vista? Do I go for third party software?

I did try sysprep on a Vista PC that is used by someone already and it
seems to be fine. Does it actually do any harm on the existing Vista
installation?

Thanks

"OM" <om@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:OFwLWE0vHHA.3500@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
>
> I have been reading a lot of about the new imaging service from Vista, it
> appears that the imaging service is only good for deploying new Vista
> installation. According to Microsoft documentation, it said You must not
> use Sysprep to reconfigure an existing installation of Windows that has
> already been deployed. Use Sysprep only to configure new installations of
> Windows. So, what if I want to image an existing installation of Windows
> Vista? Do I go for third party software?
>
> I did try sysprep on a Vista PC that is used by someone already and it
> seems to be fine. Does it actually do any harm on the existing Vista
> installation?
>
> Thanks


The imaging system uses imagex not sysprep.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...Se arch&meta=

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca

Kerry Brown wrote:
> "OM" <om@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:OFwLWE0vHHA.3500@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have been reading a lot of about the new imaging service from Vista,
>> it appears that the imaging service is only good for deploying new
>> Vista installation. According to Microsoft documentation, it said You
>> must not use Sysprep to reconfigure an existing installation of
>> Windows that has already been deployed. Use Sysprep only to configure
>> new installations of Windows. So, what if I want to image an existing
>> installation of Windows Vista? Do I go for third party software?
>>
>> I did try sysprep on a Vista PC that is used by someone already and it
>> seems to be fine. Does it actually do any harm on the existing Vista
>> installation?
>>
>> Thanks
>
>
> The imaging system uses imagex not sysprep.
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...Se arch&meta=
>
>

I realized that imagex is the tool to create Vista image. However,
sysprep has to be used in order to make the image HAL independent, isn't
it? Correct me if I am wrong.

"OM" <om@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:uh$cfi9vHHA.1204@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Kerry Brown wrote:
>> "OM" <om@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:OFwLWE0vHHA.3500@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have been reading a lot of about the new imaging service from Vista,
>>> it appears that the imaging service is only good for deploying new Vista
>>> installation. According to Microsoft documentation, it said You must not
>>> use Sysprep to reconfigure an existing installation of Windows that has
>>> already been deployed. Use Sysprep only to configure new installations
>>> of Windows. So, what if I want to image an existing installation of
>>> Windows Vista? Do I go for third party software?
>>>
>>> I did try sysprep on a Vista PC that is used by someone already and it
>>> seems to be fine. Does it actually do any harm on the existing Vista
>>> installation?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>
>>
>> The imaging system uses imagex not sysprep.
>>
>> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...Se arch&meta=
>
> I realized that imagex is the tool to create Vista image. However, sysprep
> has to be used in order to make the image HAL independent, isn't it?
> Correct me if I am wrong.
>


I don't understand what you are trying to do then. If you are using sysprep
on a production pc that is in use then yes, that is not a good idea. Sysprep
will strip out the SIDs, product keys, etc. depending on what options you
use. Generally when deploying images you create a reference system that you
image then deploy to the production pc's. If you have a production pc that
you want to create an image of to deploy to other pc's there are a couple of
ways to do it. Image the pc, restore the image to a different pc then run
sysprep on that pc, or image the pc, run sysprep, image again to create the
deployable image, then restore the first image so the pc is back to the way
it was originally.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca

On Jul 5, 1:14 pm, OM <o...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have been reading a lot of about the newimagingservice from Vista,
> it appears that theimagingservice is only good for deploying new Vista
> installation. According to Microsoft documentation, it said You must not
> use Sysprep to reconfigure an existing installation of Windows that has
> already been deployed. Use Sysprep only to configure new installations
> of Windows.

I'm not sure what documentation you're referring to, but I read that
the use of Sysprep is recorded by Vista, such that only four
consecutive uses of it are allowed. The idea as I'm interpreting it,
is to deploy an updated image by installing a fresh copy, and not to
recycle older installations in such a way.