Greetings,
We are running LDMS 9.5 sp1 and are getting our feet wet with trying to successfully deploy Win7 using a Provisioning Template. We are in hopes to use provisioning as a mass deployment method. We are generally a MDT (LiteTouch) shop and have several .wim files we use to deploy images using MDT/WDS.
We've come to understand that LD doesn't really support using ImageX to deploy images as they want you to use ImageW. This is fine, however, we really want to use our existing .wim files (syspreped/captured using MDT) to deploy to the masses. We've had some level of success in setting up a template, but keep running into issues with getting the partitions setup and working correctly. I have read that since we're using ImageX, both the system reserved partition and actual OS partition need to be created before the image can be applied. We must be missing some option/action to not get a working OS. Here's a rundown of our first couple steps:
We first remove any existing partitions:
Then create the system reserved partition:
Then create the OS partition using rest of HDD space:
Then we apply the image using ImageX:
We noticed the problems after adding in the step to create the system partition, the template fails when the image is applied. In this scenario, we use the following command to apply: /apply \\mis-landesk\ldlogon\Images\Rev3.3_x32.wim 2 C: Using diskpart, I can see the on the disk that Volume 1 has no drive letter and is not formatted (raw partition), Volume 2 is labeled as C and is formatted as NTFS
If we take out the step to create the system partition, the image does get applied and the template will run all the way through to the Reboot step after HII (in post OS install section), but after this reboot, we get a non-system disk error as if there is no OS loaded. In this scenario we use the following command to apply: /apply \\mis-landesk\ldlogon\Images\Rev3.3_x32.wim 1 C: When running diskpart this time, the only volume that shows of course is just C.
Another thing we're confused about is if there are any additional steps that are critical to getting a working, running OS. I have seen posts about using FixWindows.exe and FixUnattend.exe and am wondering if these need to be thrown in somewhere.
Just to gripe: I can definitely see the usefulness of provisioning and what it all can be used for, but initially getting to the point where the product is use-able is a struggle it seems. We're wishing that LD would have supplied some OOTB examples of the different scenarios of provisioning. IMO, the few templates that are available on the community don't seem to help folks like us that are starting from scratch and trying to make use of this product.
Attached is our template. As always, any help is appreciated!