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- 5,707
Good night everyone!
Well, I'm here trying to dink around in getting a custom image of Windows 8 done. I want to do this as I know later on this year and next year probably, the amount of people asking to upgrade or to do a clean reinstall on an OEM PC will go up. Now, I generally install Windows, pin things to Start, install Decor8; Windows Essentials 2012; configure the Desktop UI so it looks a tad cleaner, download and install updates, install some metro apps, sometimes Office or Photoshop, activate everything properly, and then defrag and do the performance enhancing here and there. Overall, this takes time, about maybe a couple of days or maybe three as I do several passes of wiping the disk down to destroy every literal bit of data (after user data is backed up of course) and a couple of thorough reformats; that takes about 16ish hours. That, along with the software part, along with physically cleaning the PC so EVERYTHING is nice and squeaky clean when I'm done with it.
So that leads me up to here. I bloody need to make customized system images to deploy quicker. I know with Windows 7, there was sysprep that was used to audit the image and then you boot into a WinPE environment to capture the install.wim image. I'm wondering if there is a better way to do that and/or quicker and/or easier way. I don't know if sysprep is used in Windows 8, I think recimg is used over that... But that is used to make a refresh image I believe.
Also, there was the WAIK deployment kit that included Imagex, where that is used to deploy the install.wim image to the target drive. That is partly the reason actually why I'm building in external 2.5" hard drive ports so I can do a hard drive to hard drive deployment as it's quicker than USB 2. Has anyone used the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (WADK) with Windows 8 yet?
That is all. Thank you!
Well, I'm here trying to dink around in getting a custom image of Windows 8 done. I want to do this as I know later on this year and next year probably, the amount of people asking to upgrade or to do a clean reinstall on an OEM PC will go up. Now, I generally install Windows, pin things to Start, install Decor8; Windows Essentials 2012; configure the Desktop UI so it looks a tad cleaner, download and install updates, install some metro apps, sometimes Office or Photoshop, activate everything properly, and then defrag and do the performance enhancing here and there. Overall, this takes time, about maybe a couple of days or maybe three as I do several passes of wiping the disk down to destroy every literal bit of data (after user data is backed up of course) and a couple of thorough reformats; that takes about 16ish hours. That, along with the software part, along with physically cleaning the PC so EVERYTHING is nice and squeaky clean when I'm done with it.
So that leads me up to here. I bloody need to make customized system images to deploy quicker. I know with Windows 7, there was sysprep that was used to audit the image and then you boot into a WinPE environment to capture the install.wim image. I'm wondering if there is a better way to do that and/or quicker and/or easier way. I don't know if sysprep is used in Windows 8, I think recimg is used over that... But that is used to make a refresh image I believe.
Also, there was the WAIK deployment kit that included Imagex, where that is used to deploy the install.wim image to the target drive. That is partly the reason actually why I'm building in external 2.5" hard drive ports so I can do a hard drive to hard drive deployment as it's quicker than USB 2. Has anyone used the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (WADK) with Windows 8 yet?
That is all. Thank you!
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- ASUS
- CPU
- AMD FX 8320
- Motherboard
- Crosshair V Formula-Z
- Memory
- 16 gig DDR3
- Graphics Card(s)
- ASUS R9 270
- Screen Resolution
- 1440x900
- Hard Drives
- 1 TB Seagate Barracuda (starting to hate Seagate)
x2 3 TB Toshibas
Windows 8.1 is installed on a SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB
- PSU
- OCZ 500 watt
- Case
- A current work in progres as I'll be building the physical case myself. It shall be fantastic.
- Cooling
- Arctic Cooler with 3 heatpipes
- Keyboard
- Logitech K750 wireless solar powered keyboard
- Mouse
- Microsoft Touch Mouse
- Browser
- Internet Explorer 11
- Antivirus
- Windows Defender, but I might go back on KIS 2014