Install all my apps in 1 hit after/during Windows 10 install?

Gambler71 said:

Hi,

We have 5 machines, 2 laptops, and some tablets. I am also designated to "service" all my relatives computers.

It is getting to be a pain to have to fix them every 3-6 months after the kids trash them with unwanted software.

Installing Windows 10 takes like 30 minutes, but it will then take me another 4 hours to re-install all the other software that we have. Most of it is freeware and I was able to use EaseUS PC Trans to quickly re-install most of that software. But I still have some free software, and a heap of paid software that I have to individually re-install on all the machines.

Anyway to over come this, like can I make a backup of my windows and then reload it on another machine and just change the licensed software registrations?

I understand I will have to register the software on each machine, that is ok, takes about 20 minutes per computer.

Gambler71 said:

I have individual Activation keys. I just thought there must be a way that an IT person would do it, or how the big manufacturers do it. They must have some system to install Windows and all the related software so that no human has to sit there installing individual pieces.

It can be done exactly as you outlined and in fact it is amazingly easy to do. It is exactly what I always do with a new version or new build of Windows. I would not bother to clean install Windows on all my machines; instead I do it once, install all my software and then simply deploy that Windows image to other machines.

In all it's simplicity it goes like this:

• Install Windows 10 on your reference computer without entering the product key selecting I do not have a product key when asked for it
• After the last reboot when Windows shows the Settings dialog, asking if you want to use the Express Settings or customize settings, press CTRL + SHIFT + F3 to restart to so called Audit Mode
• Windows signs you now in to Audit Mode with the built-in admin account because no user profiles / accounts exist yet
• In Audit Mode, install all your software (only the software you want to be installed on every computer). I use PowerShell OneGet in 10, Chocolatey in 7 and 8 to do it with one command, installing all my software silently in the background from one simple PowerShell command. If some application needs an individual product key do not enter it now
• Sysprep the Windows image with the following command given in an admin command prompt, it will make your Windows image totally hardware independent removing all hardware related information (device drivers, registry entries etc.) and shutdown your reference PC:
  %windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown
• Now boot the reference PC with a boot / emergency / rescue disk (different names used by each imaging application) of your chosen imaging software. I use both Macrium Free and EaseUS ToDo Free for this, lately almost exclusively the free version of EaseUS ToDo
• Create a system image of your reference computer
• Done!

Now you can simply, instead of clean installing Windows 10, boot each computer with the boot disk of your chosen imaging software and restore the reference image. That's it

Pros:

• A totally hardware independent image which can be restored (deployed) to any hardware setup capable of running Windows
• When the image is restored to a new PC instead of a normal clean install, the normal OOBE first run setup is run. Users set up the initial user profile as if installing Windows normally
• When the initial user finally boots to desktop, all software is already there, installed and ready to be used
• Restoring the complete image with all software takes usually less time than a plain and simple clean install of Windows
• The image can prepared and captured on a virtual machine. I use a Hyper-V vm as my reference PC when doing this

Cons:

• Windows needs to be separately activated on each PC the image was deployed to. If the PC has no digital entitlement the product key needs to be entered when the PC is booted first time after the deployment
• If software like Office suite needs to be activated, it needs to be done separately on each PC after the image has been deployed

Tutorials:

• System Image - Create Hardware Independent System Image - Windows 10 Forums
• Windows 10 Image - Customize in Audit Mode with Sysprep - Windows 10 Forums
• PowerShell OneGet - Install Apps from Command Line - Windows 10 Forums
• Chocolatey - Install Apps from Command Line

Create and restore a system image videos:





Videos from the thread Solved Windows 10 instructional videos by Ten Forums members - Windows 10 Forums

Please notice that if your reference computer is a UEFI system, the image can only be restored to other UEFI systems, and the same with BIOS systems which can only be restored to other BIOS systems. Also notice that if you create this "base" Windows image on a let's say 250 GB hard disk using all of it (minus system reserved) to Windows C: drive, the image can only be restored / deployed to the hard disks of at least the same size, in this example 250 GB.

Don't hesitate to ask if you need more information :)

Berton said:

I don't think it will be that easy. It's not the Registration but the Activation of Windows that will be a downfall unless all computers are exactly the same. But then they can't be for the purpose of Activation, the identifications of the computers' hardware will be different from each other based upon what Microsoft recognizes. Windows can't be Activated on more than one computer. The OEM/Brand computers are a different licensing arrangement with Microsoft.

fdegrove said:

All of the above plus Windows will just crash if the machine is not technically identical to the one the backup was made on.

Read my response above.

Kari

You are welcome. If you have any issues, post here or in any of the tutorial threads.