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Win7 Reskit > Part 2: Deployment > Chapter 3: Deployment Platform

Frequently Asked Questions: Windows 7 deployment platform

Q-2. When should I use the 64-bit version of Windows SIM and when the 32-bit version?

A-2. When using Windows SIM to create Windows image catalogs, you need to be aware of what system architectures you're going to be deploying Windows onto. Specifically:

• The x86 version of Windows SIM can be used to create catalogs for x86-based, x64-based, and Itanium-based Windows images.
• The x64 version of Windows SIM can only be used to create catalogs for x64-based Windows images.

The part where you might get confused however is that both versions (x86 and x64) can be used to read catalogs for any system architecture. If you plan on deploying only 64-bit versions of Windows 7, it's simplest to use only the x64 version of Windows SIM for both creating and reading catalogs.

Q-1. I have Windows AIK 2.0 and MDT 2010 installed and have imported Windows 7 x86 and x64 images into my deployment share. By launching Windows SIM from within MDT, I can create an unattend.xml answer file for my x64 image but not my x86 image. Why?

A-1. You have installed the 64-bit version of MDT on a computer running a 64-bit version of Windows. Unfortunately, on 64-bit versions of Windows, Windows SIM can only create catalogs of 64-bit Windows images. If you want to be able to use the same technician computer to create answer files for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows images, you must install the 32-bit version of MDT on a computer running a 32-bit version of Windows.

Additional Resources: Windows 7 deployment platform

For some insight on why Sysprep is needed to prepare Windows images for cloning, see Sysprep, Machine SIDs and Other Myths on The Deployment Guys blog.

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