Games - Sysprep

	Games - Sysprep

Sysprep is Microsoft's System Preparation Utility for Windows deployment and is used to prepare the operating system for disk cloning. It was initially introduced for use with Windows NT 4.0 and is used to prevent issues that arise when restoring a disk image captured from one Windows installation onto other computers.

These issues are

Invalid or missing mass storage drivers.
Invalid hardware abstraction layer (HAL).
Missing device drivers.
Duplicate computer names on a network.
Workstation recognization issues in a domain
. This is due to the fact that a security identifier (SID) is used to identify an NT workstation.

How to use

To run sysprep, extract it from the deploy.cab file on the Windows installation CD or download the latest Deployment Tools update from Microsoft. Deployment tools are available for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP SP1 and SP2 and Windows Server 2003.
Create a directory in the root of the system drive named Sysprep.
Copy the sysprep.exe, setupcl.exe and factory.exe files to the newly created Sysprep directory.
Use Setup Manager (setupmgr.exe) to create the unattended answer file for sysprep. Depending on the version of the deployment tools you are using, the default name of the answer file will either be sysprep.inf or unattended.txt. Save the file as Sysprep.inf and place it in the Sysprep directory at the root of the system drive.
Launch sysprep.exe manually to use a GUI to configure sysprep options or run sysprep from the command-line. This will prepare Windows for the first-run Out-Of-Box-Experience (OOBE
).

In Windows XP, the OOBE can be Windows Welcome or Mini-Setup.

Mini-Setup uses the entries provided in sysprep.inf as its answer file. Windows Welcome uses entries provided in winbom.ini as its answer file.

Consult the ref.chm and deploy.chm files, also included in deploy.cab or the Deployment Tools download, for additional information.

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