Sysprep making changes

[Guest]

I don’t know if anybody has come across this issue or not with sysprep. I
created an image, which I have customized, change nic settings to 10/Full,
put icons on the taskbar and so on. After installing software and making
changes, I copied the user profile I had made the changes as, to the Default
user profile. Then I run sysprep. When I boot the systems I had imaged, the
sysprep wizard follows through as it should and that is fine. But, when I
login somehow the nic settings are changed to auto, and 2 new icons (the
Windows Media player and MSN browser) are put on my desktop. Also I lost the
taskbar I had customized. Does anybody know why sysprep does this?? Is there
something I have to do in the “.inf†file that I put in the sysprep folder?
Any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[Hunter1]

Not just that, if you turn off system restore it'll turn it back on, I
think it re-activates the firewall and a few other annoying bits and
pieces. We deliver a reg file that fixes all of this post-image via
Altiris so it don't really affect us. The media player shortcut is
showing up but we just ignore it, and we're getting nothing in the way
of any MSN browser shortcut.

 

[WM]

Network cards are always removed by sysprep - it is part of the process to
make a system unique. As a result, any changes you make to the NIC are gone.
Unfortunately it also does some obnoxious work to ensure that an OEM
shipping XP has a certain look and feel - you need to make those
modifications after boot, as well as deleting the desktop shortcuts...

 

[WM]

Same thing as I just noted above - NIC's are removed - and the default value
for the firewall is to put it back on on new connections. so...

 

[Mats]

The nic problem is by design as sysprep redetects all hardware and since the
standard inf files are set for auto, that is what sysprep will install. I
solved this with a homemade exe file that will set the nicspeed from a
script

As for the icons it actually adds three MSN, MediaPlayer and Internet
explorer.

We removed MSN in our unattended with the msnexplr=off statement under the
[Components] section

to get rid of MediaPlayer we simply use a script that runs after
installation and deletes the link on all user desktop

and to get rid of ie a reghack is used
"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\Ne
wStartPanel\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D},1"

 

[Guest]

Is there anyway of configuring the sysprep.inf file to let it know what speed
the nic should be?

 

[Mats]

No, at least there is no way I am aware of.

The problem is that nicspeed, duplex and other settings under the andvanced
tab are optional for the nic vendor to implement, Therefore MS didn't make a
standard interface for this. Due to that there is no standard setting for
it.

I have asked MS to make theese settings a standard for Longhorn or later.

In the meanwhile that you could do is write a tool that changes the
nicsetttings for speed and duplex in the registry and reboots the system.
You will need to find the specific settings for each nic you will have in
your organisation.

 

[Tom S]

Could you change the .inf file to default to your NIC settings and let
sysprep use that instead when it finds it?

 

[Mats]

Yes you can do this if it is an unsigned driver. I have been using that
trick in PE to get it to load with the right speed.

 

[Tom S]

Thanks. I guess I'm glad now that our NIC drivers are unsigned.

 

[Mats]

If you have a signed one: try and remove the cat file. It works most of the
times..