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Win7 Reskit > Part 2: Deployment > Chapter 6: Deploying Disk Images

Frequently Asked Questions: Capturing images

Q-2. Let's say you have a computer on your network that you use only as a reference computer. In other words, you perform a customized deployment of Windows 7 onto this computer and then sysprep and capture the image using MDT so you can later deploy this image onto the other (target) computers on your network. When you use MDT to deploy Windows onto this reference computer, you want the Windows Deployment Wizard to display the Specify Whether To Capture An Image wizard page. But when you use MDT to deploy the captured image onto target computers, you do NOT want the Windows Deployment Wizard to display the Specify Whether To Capture An Image wizard page. Can this be done?

A-2. Yes. You can do this by adding another section to your CustomSettings.ini file that specifies the MAC address of your reference computer and configure the SkipCapture property appropriately. In other words, change the initial portion of your CustomSettings.ini file from this:

[Settings]
Priority = Default
Properties=MyCustomProperty
[Default]
SkipCapture = YES
…

to this:

[Settings]
Priority = MACAddress, Default
Properties=MyCustomProperty
[00:0F:20:35:DE:AC]
SkipCapture = NO
[Default]
SkipCapture = YES
…

Here 00:0F:20:35:DE:AC is the MAC address of your reference computer.

Q-1. You are trying to use the Sysprep and Capture task sequence to manually capture an image from an existing reference installation. Unfortunately the Windows Deployment Wizard page for capturing an image is not displayed, which means you can't specify a network share for uploading the captured image to. What could be the cause of this issue?

A-1. The wizard page you need is being skipped because the computer whose image you are trying to capture is domain-joined. Use of the Sysprep and Capture task sequence is only supported for capturing images of computers that belong to workgroups.

Frequently Asked Questions: Creating and editing Task Sequences

Q-1. MDT 2010 includes the new capability of being able to copy tasks or groups of tasks from one task sequence to another. But what if you want to make a copy of an entire task sequence so you can use the copy as a starting point for a new task sequence and then customize your new task sequence?

A-1. Unfortunately there's no way of doing this directly in the Deployment Workbench or even by using the Windows PowerShell Provider for MDT. But you can do this manually by following these steps:

1. Create a new task sequence using the Workbench. Be sure to select the same task sequence template (e.g. Standard Client) and operating system image as the original task sequence you want to copy.
2. Use Windows Explorer to copy the TS.xml file from the \DeploymentShare$\Control\ folder to the \DeploymentShare$\Control\ folder, overwriting the existing TS.xml file in the folder.
3. Open the properties of your new task sequence in the Workbench and select the Task Sequence tab. The tasks and task groups for your new task sequence will be identical to those of your original task sequence. Now go ahead and customize these tasks and task groups as desired for your new task sequence.

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