Question : Sysprepping Windows 7 PCs

Hi,

I work in the IT department in a school district and we are replacing several computer labs with Dell Optiplex 780s running Windows 7. It will be a total of approximately 200 computers. I want to create an image with all the software, settings, etc...  I need to Sysprep these PCs so they all have an individual SID as we are migrating from Novell to an MS Domain. When we were running Novell SIDs didn't matter and all we did was create a Ghost image from a PC and put that image on all the rest of the same model PCs using Ghostcast Server.

We would still like to use Ghost, but the image needs to be Sysprepped. Sysprep is so different in Win 7 than it was in XP. All I want Sysprep to do is assign a new SID and prompt for a computer name and to join the domain when the PC starts up for the first time after re-imaging. The PC will have two local user accounts, "student" which is a standard user, and "Techs" which is an administrative account. If the kids need to log into the domain they will login using their domain account. When these PCs start up we have them auto login using the "student" account. We use a reg hack for this because TweakUI isn't supported by Win 7.

I've tried running Sysprep but it keeps wanting to run the "OOBE" scheme. I haven't tried an answer file. When OOBE runs it changes our image and I don't want that.  Any help would be appreciated. We will be using Ghost version 11.1

Thanks,
Mike

Answer : Sysprepping Windows 7 PCs

I've spent a lot of hours getting the Windows 7 sysprep process correct.I've decided create an article to share what I've learned to make things easier:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/Windows_7/Windows-7-Sysprep.html

Hope this helps you.