How to Build a Sysprep Answer File Windows XP and 2. Note This post discusses Sysprep as it pertains to Windows 2. Windows XP, and Windows Server 2. If youre working with a newer version of Windows, check out these posts. Sysprep is one of those things that seems to have a certain mystique that surrounds it. My experience is that administrators either dont run it because they dont understand it or because they dont know how. Urban legend is also that its just not necessary to run Sysprep in some scenarios. The bottom line is that when making an image for duplicating Windows installs Sysprep is absolutelynecessary as part of the imaging process. Im not going to cover what Sysprep does here since thats not the focus, but the summary version is that Sysprep removes all identifying information about the source machine when its executed e. Computer name, SID, Product key, etc. The rest of this post is geared primarily towards desktop imaging, but everything still applies for building server images. Sysprep is on the Windows CD and the service pack CDs in the support folder in a file called deploy. Its also available online If you need a version that isnt linked above either grab it from the CD or just search www. Sysprep. Theres a utility called setupmgr. Most of it is self explanatory, Ive included screenshots and explanations of steps that require some planningthought. The first question of note is what type of answer file to build. For this procedure we want a Sysprep setup The next important question is when were asked about the license agreement and if we want to fully automate the installation we do After telling the wizard you wish to fully automate the installation youll get a screen with a tree view on the left and a set of BackNext buttons. Most of this stuff is very self explanatory. The product key is an important one. Microsoft Word 2010 Building Blocks Tutorials there. You need to have a volume license key or youll be activating each machine and youll run out of activations. Imaging without volume license keys is a recipe for disaster Ive seen it happen Computer name is another step that depends on a few factors. If youre doing mass imaging with a product like Ghost or Altiris, set it to Automatically Generate. If youre going to be doing one off imaging without something to automate the naming for you, leave it to Automatically Generate and well come back later to set Sysprep to prompt for this information. Unfortunately, the wizard doesnt seem to support setting the Administrator Password by default, so just put something temporary in for now and well get rid of it later. Krj_Dsj4Cec/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Using An Answer File For An Unattended Installation Windows' title='Using An Answer File For An Unattended Installation Windows' />You also get the option to automatically log on as the administrator some N number times. This is useful for running post imaging scripts. A word of caution is that the username and password for the administrator account is stored in the registry in plain text when this option is used, and it is not cleaned up at the end, so make sure your script does this cleanup step when it finishes I leave Networking Components set as is as it defaults to DHCP. PvFHbjLeLXo/VWGnVaIghTI/AAAAAAAAB1E/yLqSCmnKWzA/s1600/Capture_UEFI_xmltoe2b_disk1.jpg' alt='Using An Answer File For An Unattended Installation Windows' title='Using An Answer File For An Unattended Installation Windows' />Make sure your image machine is set to DHCP when it shuts down to be imaged or it may not come up that way Workgroup or domain is another option which depends on the imagingduplication mechanism you employ. For one off imaging, it can be helpful to setup Sysprep to automatically join the machine to your domain. This is especially nice if you delegate the imaging process to a junior admin who may not have rights to do this themselves as the wizard will take care of it all. The account specified should have rights to create and delete computer objects and write access to all properties for Computer objects. It also needs the Add Computers to the Domain right delegated at the domain level. Dont be cheap and add the account to the Domain Admins group and forget about it. There is an additional option which can be specified in the Sysprep. Sysprep to put the machine in a specific OU this is not supported in Windows 2. If you use this option the account only needs rights over that OU. If youre using something like the Ghost Agent to automate the post imaging process, just choose the workgroup option and let Ghost manage joining the domain. The rest of the wizard is pretty straight forward and I just fill it out even if some of the prompts arent really necessary. Install Printers is something I generally do via Group Policy, so I dont typically use that feature. Additional Commands can be used to specify post imaging tasks e. Identification String has no functional value out of the box. Its just a string thats stored in the registry. I typically set it to something that identifies each image e. How do I create an installer for a Windows Service that I have created using Visual Studio When creating the Sysprep. After a Windows XP computer cloned using Sysprep restarts, the MiniSetup program. Dell GX2. 60 XP Pro BCD v. This tells me that this machine is built with version 1. XP Pro image for the Dell GX2. I can then use scriptsinventory tools to report on what images are on PCs in my domain. The Identification String page has the Finish button which saves the Sysprep. At this point youre done, or you can customize the process more by editing the resultant INF file manually. The two CHM files that come with Sysprep fully document every option available and are worth skimming just to know the format if nothing else. As an example, Im going to edit the Sysprep. Using the administrator password configuration in my image rather than setting a new one Extending the C partition to fill the hard disk Prompting for the computer name Joining the domain and putting the computer in a specific Organizational Unit. Fresh out of the wizard the Sysprep. Setup. Mgr. Tag. Oem. Skip. EulaYes. Install. Files. PathC sysprepi. Gui. Unattended. Admin. Passwordpassword. Encrypted. Admin. PasswordNO. Time. Zone3. 5. OEMSkip. Regional1. Oem. Skip. Welcome1. Product. KeyABCDE ABCDE ABCDE ABCDE ABCDE. Full. NameBrian Desmond. Org. NameBrian Desmond Consulting, LLC. Computer. Name. Dist. FolderC sysprepi. Dist. Sharewindist. Identification. Join. DomainDOMAIN. Domain. Adminsysprepadmin. Domain. Admin. Passwordpassword. Install. Default. ComponentsYes. To use the administrator password in the image, set Admin. Password Also remove the Encrypted. Admin. PasswordNO line. Extending the C partition to fill the hard disk is something I often do for desktop images depending upon the environment. To do this, add a line in the Unattended section called Extend. OEMPartition1. To prompt for the computer name, delete everything behind the, such that Computer. Name is the whole line. To put the computer in a specific Organizational Unit in the Active Directory domain, add a line under the Identification section called similar to this Machine. Object. OUOUDesktops,OUMachines,DCDomain,DClocal. Obviously youll need to customize this string for your environment. With all these additions the Sysprep. Setup. Mgr. Tag. Oem. Skip. EulaYes. Install. Files. PathC sysprepi. Extend. OEMPartition1. Gui. Unattended. Admin. Password Password. Encrypted. Admin. PasswordNO. OEMSkip. Regional1. Oem. Skip. Welcome1. Product. KeyABCDE ABCDE ABCDE ABCDE ABCDE. Full. NameBrian Desmond. Org. NameBrian Desmond Consulting, LLC. Computer. Name Dist. FolderC sysprepi. Dist. Sharewindist. Identification. Join. DomainDOMAIN. Domain. Adminsysprepadmin. Domain. Admin. Passwordpassword. Machine. Object. OUOUDesktops,OUMachines,DCDomain,DClocal. Install. Default. ComponentsYes. To run the Sysprep utility, copy everything from the deploy. Choose the Reseal option and make sure the option to run mini setup is checked.