Windows 7 Sysprep Preserve Activation

I work for a computer refurbisher that uses only retail XP Pro and retail Windows 7 Pro licenses.

The contract we have specifies that the OS must be pre activated so the end user is only presented with the Microsoft EULA page when they boot the first time.

XP was relatively easy to figure out how to do this;

basically deploy a sysprep image, boot to the desktop to check for driver issues enter the product key and activate.

After completing a post installation checklist another sysprep was run using:

sysprep -activated -reseal -shutdown in conjunction with a sysprep.inf which had the product key that was used to activate and under Unattended AutoActivate Yes

It seems to be a lot more difficult than in XP.

Now that we will be switching to Windows 7 Pro I have an unattend.xml that works for the initial deployment but I can t figure out how to create a reseal.xml for the second sysprep so only

the EULA page is displayed when the end user boots the first time.

Is this even possible when using retail license.

Tutorial on doing a complete Sysprep on a Windows 7 Machine from start to finish; copyprofile true, automatically activating windows, etc.

In a recent blog post, Mark Russinovich wrote about the implications of having duplicate machine Security Identifiers machine SIDs. As it turns out, there are.

This is version 2 of a step by step guide on Sysprepping a Windows 7 machine from start to finish. I cannot take full credit on this because my first article had so many helpful comments and discussions that this is simply a combination of all the good advice written into a working guide. I would especially like to thank George for his input on Cscript for auto activation and Nathan for input on Sysprep Audit Mode.

Note – I highly recommend creating a boot or rescue disk before starting any windows 7 technical projects. There are many tools in the market and I use Spotmau BootSuite rescue software and boot disk utility because of it s versatile features and top notch performance.

Windows 7 Sysprep

Last Updated on 06.08.13

Proud to announce, this tutorial has been translated to Serbo-Croatian language by WHGeeks

This will guide you through the following:

Audit Mode

Building the unattend.xml file in WSIM

copyprofile true command to copy the default profile no manual copy

Prompt for a computer name

Enable Administrator account

Administrator account logs in first time automatically

Activate windows automatically with Cscript;

Successfully copy over taskbar icons;

Delete unattend.xml file automatically upon completion of re-image.

Here is a list of what you will need:

First we are going to walk through building the unattend.xml file answer file and then we will walk through the actual Windows 7 imaging process.

PART 1 – XML FILE CREATION

Step 1

If you have a Windows 7 installation DVD, insert it now. Or if you have an ISO of 7, go ahead and extract it to a folder on your desktop. I recommend 7-zip.

Step 2

Launch Windows System Image Manager. Your start menu should look like the image below:

Step 3

Under the Windows Image header, right click and select new image.

Step 4

You will now want to browse to the. CLG file in your Windows 7 installation I am using Windows 7 Enterprise x64 in my example. It is located in the sources folder. See Image below. You can select either the. clg file or the install.wim. Both will have the same result.

Step 5

Now we need to create a new answer file. Go to the file menu and select Create New Answer File. Right after creating one, go ahead and simply go to file menu and select Save Answer File. This will give your XML file a name and save location. I chose to name mine unattend.xml. Now you see we have two category folders, Components and Packages. Under the Components folder you see that we have 7 options:

1 windowsPE

2 offlineServicing

3 generalize

4 specialize

5 auditSystem

6 auditUser

7 oobeSystem

Step 6

These are very important as these are the steps in which the unattend.xml file is sequenced.

The next part is a little confusing. You are going to add components, from under the Windows Image section on the bottom left hand side to the passes on your Answer File. To add a component, you can right click on them and select add to pass. There are many different options you can add, but they have to be done in a certain order and pass otherwise your sysprep might fail. I am simply going to use the one I created as the example.

Here is more information about adding options under the passes:

Nothing required in my example.

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP_6.1.7600.16385_neutral

Set 1 for SkipRearm to allow up to 8 rearms

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Deployment_6.1.7600.16385_neutral

Order: 1

path: net user administrator /active:yes

WillReboot: Never

RunSynchronousCommand Order 1

RunSynchronous

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-UX_6.1.7600.16385_neutral

SkipAutoActivation: true

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_6.1.7600.16385_neutral

Computer Name: Leave blank we will deal with this at the end

CopyProfile: true

Registered Organization: Microsoft you must leave this in this section

Registered Owner: AutoBVT you must leave this in this section

ShowWindowsLive: false

TimeZone: Pacific Standard Time

Please view TimeZone settings here - 28WS.10 29.aspx

You can delete other sub-header components if you don t need them.

amd64_Microsoft-Windows-International-Core_6.1.7600.16385_neutral

InputLocale: en-us

SystemLocale: en-us

UILanguage: en-us

UserLocale: en-us

RegisteredOrganization: Your Company Name

RegisteredOwner: Your Name

AutoLogon

1. Password: Administrator Password

Enabled: true

LogonCount: 5

Username: administrator

FirstLogonCommands

1. CommandLine: cscript /b c: windows system32 slmgr.vbs /ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX windows 7 license key

Order 1

RequiresUserInput: false

CommandLine: cscript /b c: windows system32 slmgr.vbs /ato

Order 2

SynchronousCommand Order 1

SynchronousCommand Order 2

OOBE

HideEULAPage: true

NetworkLocation: Home

ProtectYourPC: 1

UserAccounts

Action: AddListItem

Description: Local Administrator

DisplayName: Administrator

Group: Administrators

Name: Administrator

LocalAccount Name Administrator

AdministratorPassword: Administrator Password

LocalAccounts

If you have questions, look at my image above to see full layout of components, it should help.

Step 7

K, now go ahead and save your answer file as unattend.xml.

Step 8

If you want the sysprep to prompt for a computer name you need to remove a line from your XML file. Open up your XML file you saved with notepad and remove the following line:

PART 2 – IMAGING PROCESS / RUNNING SYSPREP

Step 9

Install Windows 7 Enterprise from CD or USB flash drive, when you arrive at the welcome screen and it asks you to create a username, hit ctrl shift f3.

This will reboot your machine and put your windows build in audit mode.

Step 10

On reboot, you ll automatically be logged in under the built-in Administrator account. A sysprep GUI box will appear, but you can close it and NOW begin to customize your profile.

Step 11

Install any software/drivers, make any profile customizations, etc.

If you need to reboot, the computer will boot you back into the Administrator account. You will be stuck in this audit mode until you run sysprep with the /oobe parameter. After doing so, sysprep will delete/clean up the Administrator account, but if you have copyprofile true in your unattended answer file, it will copy the customized Admin account to the default profile before deleting it.

Step 12

On the PC you are going to be running sysprep on, you need to create a folder called scripts in this directory: WINDIR Setup. Now you are going to create a CMD file within the WINDIR Setup Scripts directory. Right click and make a new text file called SetupComplete.txt. Remove the. txt extension and replace that with. cmd. You now have a SetupComplete.cmd file which windows will read the first time it boots up from the sysprep. We need to place a script inside the CMD file. Edit the cmd file with notepad and insert this line: del /Q /F c: windows system32 sysprep unattend.xml. This script will delete your unattend.xml file after it has been used. The unattend.xml file is also copied to the C: Windows Panther directory, so you will want to add a second line to the CMD file, del /Q /F c: windows panther unattend.xml. If you have passwords or cd keys stored in that xml file you don t have to worry about it being left on the computer.

UPDATE AS OF FEBRUARY 27, 2013: Read my Taskbar Icons Tutorial before continuing.

Step 13

Once you have everything configured correctly, Copy or move your unattend.xml file to : C: windows system32 sysprep.

Now to run sysprep you need to launch Command Prompt as an administrator. To do this press start, and type into the search CMD then right click on CMD and select run as Administrator. Next navigate to the sysprep folder by typing: cd sysprep and pressing enter.

Next, input the following commands:

sysprep /generalize /oobe /unattend:unattend.xml /shutdown

Step 14

Turn the computer back on and boot to WinPE 3.0 environment USB stick or CD/DVD. You can use our TheITBros WinPE3.1 BootLoader to boot up from USB or CD and capture your image. Capture image and save image to network location.

A Dell 960 or GX755 is a good standard for capturing when you want a generic image for use with multiple systems. Might require injecting additional drivers for 3rd party brands, HP, etc. Most should work though right out of the box.

Step 15

On reboot, Windows will run out of the box, as the /oobe is intended. As long as you put your cd key into the unattend.xml file, windows will be activated automatically in the background, you will be automatically logged into the administrator account, and the unattend.xml file is deleted. You are now ready to use the computer or join it to the domain. Enjoy.

TIP 1

Thanks T800 for the tip: Apparently I had to stop Windows Media Player Network Sharing service before I could run /oobe /generalize, otherwise it gave me a fatal error.

Dan Wright also mentioned that you need to set the network location to Public and/or delete some files and registry keys. See this article: v ws.10. aspx

TIP 2

To enable Aero your computer needs to calculate it s performance score. Do you want to do that on each and every machine. No. So, if all machines have the same hardware, run this before syspreping your master-image :

winsat prepop

This will calculate the performance index and put it on your machine in xml-format. If the OOBE wizard finds this xml file, and the hardware hasn t changed, it uses the pre-populate values and Aero works out of the box.

TIP 3

From user comment:

After many hours of battling, I also found that a registry entry must be added for sysprep to look in the C: Drivers location. In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version click on DevicePath and enter C: Drivers remember the entries must be separated by a semicolon. More info here:

TIP 4

To keep the drivers installed to the computer there has to be a option under generalize Microsoft-Windows-PnpSysprep_neutral - PersistAllDeviceInstalls TRUE and DoNotCleanUpNonPresentDevices TRUE. Otherwise if one of your device is off, the driver is uninstalled and etc.

Incoming search terms:windows 7 sysprepstan oobewin 7 sysprepit bros sysprep v2windows 7 sysprep answer file

Posted By Brian Jackson

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