Best way to create W10 Pro reference computer and deploy the image

DavidY said:

I also just noticed that Microsoft have revamped their deployment help pages (again) to go with the coming '1607' Anniversary Release and the latest pages are helpful and include things like Sample Scripts which I find are good to get ideas from.

They have been updated in the last week, although I haven't figured out how to get the latest ADK which is required for some of it to work - may need to wait a week or two for that to be released publicly.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/win...ng-walkthrough

Awesome. Thanks. What's the difference between the TechNet site and this msdn.microsoft site? I've come across both while researching this whole thing and have been wondering.

ahelton said:

Awesome. Thanks. What's the difference between the TechNet site and this msdn.microsoft site? I've come across both while researching this whole thing and have been wondering.

Not sure which is best/more suitable, to be honest.
I take info anywhere I can get it!

ahelton said:

Cool. I was just curious. BTW, I just completed getting my reference computer set up the way I want it to be. Now it's on to this automated batch script thingy. Is there any sort of documentation to read a little bit more about this since I'm so unfamiliar with it? My scripting prowess is severely lacking.

I have SublimeText3, so I figure I can just use that to accomplish editing the startnet.cmd file, correct?

>>Whatever text editor is your favorite- it just needs to be able to pop open that file and write to it. I use Notepad++, but that's just me.

>>I don't think you'll have problems writing your script- for the most part you can literally just copy down the commands you typed in WinPE to the script (why I recommended writing them down as you went). Only a few things (like the disk formatting will need to be automated with a separate script). Refer back to my earlier posts where I posted some scripts. I *think* I put an example in there that has disk formatting, but I can't remember.

>>I'm generally going to say- I can help with this. There is some documentation out there, and allow me a few moments to go out and see if I can't find some websites out there that I used.

>>If you're out seeking information yourself, you might want to search 'writing a batch file' (since batch is the "scripting language"). Batch is fairly easy as it is generally just going to be what you typed in WinPE's command prompt.

You might also want to search 'How to <whatever you want to do> in a batch file'

DavidY said:

Not sure which is best/more suitable, to be honest.
I take info anywhere I can get it!

True that. From what I can tell, the TechNet site seems to be geared more towards people using Microsoft developed products and the MSDN site seems to be geared towards those actually helping develop products and services using the Microsoft platform. Naturally, there's some overlap there I suppose.

ahelton said:

...

Technet article about mounting and modifying WinPE:
(has a 'Add customizations ' section):

WinPE: Mount and Customize

Some basic stuff about writing batch files:
How To Write A Simple Batch (.bat) File

Diskpart in a batch:
Diskpart Batch File
Diskpart Scripts and Examples

I think that should be the basics in getting started with this. It should be fairly easy to get started, you'll probably just need to play around with it or whatever your way of learning new things is.

I can also answer questions regarding the script portion of this.

RBunning said:

>>Whatever text editor is your favorite- it just needs to be able to pop open that file and write to it. I use Notepad++, but that's just me.

>>I don't think you'll have problems writing your script- for the most part you can literally just copy down the commands you typed in WinPE to the script (why I recommended writing them down as you went). Only a few things (like the disk formatting will need to be automated with a separate script). Refer back to my earlier posts where I posted some scripts. I *think* I put an example in there that has disk formatting, but I can't remember.

>>I'm generally going to say- I can help with this. There is some documentation out there, and allow me a few moments to go out and see if I can't find some websites out there that I used.

>>If you're out seeking information yourself, you might want to search 'writing a batch file' (since batch is the "scripting language"). Batch is fairly easy as it is generally just going to be what you typed in WinPE's command prompt.

You might also want to search 'How to <whatever you want to do> in a batch file'

Great. This will give me something to work on tomorrow. I typed all the commands I used in a notepad file so I could just copy and paste them when I got to this point.

ahelton said:

True that. From what I can tell, the TechNet site seems to be geared more towards people using Microsoft developed products and the MSDN site seems to be geared towards those actually helping develop products and services using the Microsoft platform. Naturally, there's some overlap there I suppose.

That's a great observation. MSDN is the Microsoft Developer's Network and is geared towards people trying to create new things for existing Microsoft products. This is for people like software developers, etc...

Technet is generally the documentation and whatnot geared towards 'IT professionals' (as Microsoft calls them). People who work somewhere and are using a Microsoft product or resource to accomplish something (more commonly in the business/ enterprise world) and need documentation or assistance in how to use that product or resource. Technet seems to be what I use the most at work when you're stuck with something.

RBunning said:

Mount and Modify a Windows Image Using DISM
Don't unmount! If you want to modify this file again, its easier to just keep committing changes without an unmount than having to remount each time.

In the TechNet article, it seems to indicate that it is necessary to unmount the image after modifying it, but in your explanation you say not to unmount so that it's easier to edit should that be necessary. Why, in this case, can we not unmount it and it sill work fine?

Random, but still somewhat relevant question: I noticed that if I try to create a new working copy of WinPE by using the appropriate Dism copype command, it won't let me. It throws than error in the Deployment and Imaging Services Command Console that says "Error: Destination directory exists: <location of WinPE"

Does this mean that once you copy it once, the Deployment and Imaging Services stores it somewhere (like coping to a clipboard or something) so that you don't have to copy it again? Or does it only do this until I try to copy some other file and then it will overwrite it?

ahelton said:

In the TechNet article, it seems to indicate that it is necessary to unmount the image after modifying it, but in your explanation you say not to unmount so that it's easier to edit should that be necessary. Why, in this case, can we not unmount it and it sill work fine?

The main problem with not unmounting is file permissions to both the mount directory and the image itself. It is not all and entirely necessary to unmount- all you need to do to make sure your changes are saved is commit the changes to the image. I assume that when your doing this you wont be deleting or moving the WinPE files on your ADK computer until you're done. When you're totally done with this is when you'll want to unmount (or you can just un- and re- mount each time you modify the WinPE image). I feel its more convenient to just commit without unmounting when you're testing and repetitively modifying WinPE.

**>I've done this both ways and have had total success with both.