C
Cyron
Hello again folks,
I'm trying to clone approximately 50 machines. All of these machines
have identical hardware and so I have setup my template computer with
all drivers thats will be required by the various components (NICs,
video card, etc.). After running sysprep on the template computer and
ghosting this image onto a blank machine, I find that I am prompted for
many of the drivers that I had previously installed. Ideally, I would
like my driver settings to verbatim to what I had taken the time to
define on the template machine -- but if sysprep insists on deleting
those settings I would like it to automatically restore them.
In an earlier thread someone had mentioned just cloning the template
computer (without sysprep) and then using newSid (by sysinternals.com)
on each of the clones. I tried this and things appear to work just
like I want, however the other problem is I don't have a volume license
for the 50 machines. Instead I have 50 boxes of XP with 50 different
serial numbers. Sysprep was attractive because it prompted me for the
serial number information at startup and detected that Windows needed
to be activated. In my testing, if I clone the computer without using
sysprep, change the SID and use a product key changer to enter the
correct code, I never get promped to activate Windows (since the
template computer was activated)
Now I really don't care for product activation -- especially since
none of these computers are permitted to be connected to the Internet
and therefore I'll be spending about 6 hours with Microsoft's automated
phone system reading off insanely huge code numbers -- but I just feel
like the software needs to be activated in some way for it to be legal.
Also, the applications that run on these systems are very important
and I don't want anything breaking due to something stupid related to
activation problems.
So in summary, I would really like to avoid using 3rd party tools
outside of what Microsoft recommends, but their sysprep doesn't seem to
do what I want. Has anyone been in a similar situation? What did you
do to fix it?
Any comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike
I'm trying to clone approximately 50 machines. All of these machines
have identical hardware and so I have setup my template computer with
all drivers thats will be required by the various components (NICs,
video card, etc.). After running sysprep on the template computer and
ghosting this image onto a blank machine, I find that I am prompted for
many of the drivers that I had previously installed. Ideally, I would
like my driver settings to verbatim to what I had taken the time to
define on the template machine -- but if sysprep insists on deleting
those settings I would like it to automatically restore them.
In an earlier thread someone had mentioned just cloning the template
computer (without sysprep) and then using newSid (by sysinternals.com)
on each of the clones. I tried this and things appear to work just
like I want, however the other problem is I don't have a volume license
for the 50 machines. Instead I have 50 boxes of XP with 50 different
serial numbers. Sysprep was attractive because it prompted me for the
serial number information at startup and detected that Windows needed
to be activated. In my testing, if I clone the computer without using
sysprep, change the SID and use a product key changer to enter the
correct code, I never get promped to activate Windows (since the
template computer was activated)
Now I really don't care for product activation -- especially since
none of these computers are permitted to be connected to the Internet
and therefore I'll be spending about 6 hours with Microsoft's automated
phone system reading off insanely huge code numbers -- but I just feel
like the software needs to be activated in some way for it to be legal.
Also, the applications that run on these systems are very important
and I don't want anything breaking due to something stupid related to
activation problems.
So in summary, I would really like to avoid using 3rd party tools
outside of what Microsoft recommends, but their sysprep doesn't seem to
do what I want. Has anyone been in a similar situation? What did you
do to fix it?
Any comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike