Windows 10: creating an image

guys, am lost. Havent imaged in a few years and need to start imaging this wednesday eight workgroup computers for a non-profit organization. I created a w10 reference pc in vmware workstation but there i am stuck. Seems syspre and dism dont work anymore in w10? Hope someone can tell me how i can create an image from that reference pc and how to get that on the eight workgroup pc's . In the old days i used winpe.iso but dont know how to do that with w10(or even how to test win pe in my virtual environment).

Someone who can help/advice me? thanks.

:)

 

Creating an image fails with an 0x807800c5 error.

trying to create an image on my Lenovo 320s laptop. Hdd has a 260mb healthy EFI partition, a118gb drive C: A1000mb healthy recovery partition. External backup hdd has a 1000mb healthy recovery partition, a 260mb healthy EFI partition, a 1000mb healthy
OEM partition, a 916gb healthy primary partition (D and a healthy recovery partition. It appears to copy the EFI partition, then fails with the 0x807800c5 error. Further information states that 'The mounted backup volume is inaccessible. please retry the
operation 0x8078004f' I assume this simply means 'Try again'. Have tried to create the image in Backup and restore (Windows 7) and selected drive D: as the backup device. Any help will be appreciated.

Ron.

 

Creating an image fails with an 0x807800c5 error.

Also another thought is Microsoft has a great cloud solution called Azure.

This solution does cost but it is way you can securely and automatically backup to the cloud and restore on any device.

And it will not be deprecated.

I currently use it and love it.

Link with cost.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/pricing/detai...

 

Welcome to Ten Forums Deheugden.

Everything works pretty much as it has been working since Windows Vista. Myself a great Hyper-V virtualization fan I use it instead of VMware, creating all my deployment images with it.

Instead of capturing the image with DISM I use in my opinion a much faster and easier way. After Sysprep I just shut down the reference virtual machine, boot it with Macrium Reflect boot device and create a system image. This image I then deploy to all my computers, again booting the machines up with Macrium Reflect boot device and restoring the image.

You might want to make a pot of coffee, turn of the phone for 15 minutes and read this tutorial through: Windows 10 Image - Customize in Audit Mode with Sysprep - Windows 10 Forums

I really recommend first reading it completely through, not starting the procedure and stopping every minute or so to read next paragraph. Tutorial is done using Hyper-V as virtualization platform but method told in it works on other virtualization platforms as well.

The third of the videos in beginning of the tutorial is not too long, I recommend you watch at least it if time does not allow you to watch first two. the third one is a recap, covering about everything.

If you have any questions after reading the tutorial, we will do our best to give you correct answers.

 

thanksKari for the fast reply. Will have a look at it. And about Macrium, its for free?

 

Yes, I use the free version.

 

and when imaging your virtual reference pc, whats the destination of the image? A physiccal drive on your pc?

 

The first two videos, a bit long I admit, will show how I am doing it. I'll attach an extra VHD (virtual hard disk) to virtual machine to capture the image.

Anyway, any available storage will do. You can capture it to any disk available for Macrium Rescue environment, local or network. When I'm done I then copy the image to a USB stick, plugging it and Macrium boot USB to each computer, boot from Macrium boot disk and restore the image from the another USB.

When doing a deployment image I use the /generalize switch with Sysprep command (shown in tut & vids) which removes all hardware related information and drivers from the Windows image, meaning I can then restore / deploy that image to any hardware. Windows 10 is bloody good in finding then correct drivers on each machine I deploy the image.

My deployment image continues three additional language packs, full Office 2016 suite (about 3 GB), Windows ADK (7 GB) and full Visual Studio 2015 (24 GB) plus a lot of other software, all which I want to be installed on each of my Windows 10 machines, meaning my images are quite big, between 40 and 50 GB:





For this, to prepare Windows image, from the moment I begin installation of Windows 10 on reference virtual machine, to the point when I am ready to boot to Macrium to create the image, it will take for me quite exactly 90 minutes.

Add 12 to 14 minutes to create a system image with Macrium, I'm done in a bit less than two hours. When deploying Macrium needs about 10 to 15 minutes to restore the image, Windows initial OOBE boot after that another 10 minutes (generalized image, Windows setup needs to find and install all drivers), in other words one PC has my image deployed and is ready to run in less than half an hour. I usually do two USB sticks with the image, meaning I can deploy two machines at the same time. Deploying over the network would be easier but take a lot more time.

 

ok, read the tutorial(took me more than 15 minutes btw &#128512*Wink and watched tutorial three. You did a great job with the tuto and the vid. Also find the integration of Macrium really out of the box.

So, because i already have a reference pc, i think i need to start with part 6 of the tutorial, skip 7 and continue with 8. Only one thing(for now) isnt really clear, should i run sysprep before using Macrium or after? Also, in vid3 you had to click the next button a few times, cant that be done unattended?

 

Correct.

If you think it logically, you need of course run Sysprep first. Sysprep shuts down the reference machine after it's done, image captured then is ready to be deployed, already sysprepped.

If you would capture the image before sysprepping then you would need to run Sysprep on each machine after the image was deployed.

That's the only con in using Macrium (or any other imaging application) as a deployment tool, it's not fully automatic and unattended. If you want a completely unattended deployment then you have to use more professional tool to capture and deploy the image.

Just to make this clear, the tutorial in question as most of the content here at Ten Forums is intended for private users. The tutorial is just showing an example how to use professional methods on private networks and computing with free, easy to use and to most users familiar tools.

 

Yeah, thought so it still would be like that. Wanted to be for sure.

Anyway, Reflect with sysprep works fine. Now need to find a way to migrate/backup userprofiles and try to restore the created image in Macrium within my virtual environment.

 

You can test deployment on a virtual machine simply by creating a new vm, booting it with Macrium boot device and restoring the image. Just remember that as with physical machines, also the test virtual machine needs a disk at least as big as the one you imaged.

In other words if your reference machine has a 256 GB primary disk which you imaged, containing the BIOS / UEFI system partitions and partition C: for Windows, the target machine on which image will be restored must have a primary disk 256 GB or bigger.

 

Correct, just found in in Macrium. You can download the raw film here if youre interested:

MEGA

tested this and it works fine

 

Your uploaded video is a .trec file which I believe to be a Camtasia file extension. I don't use Camtasia and without converting the file can't open it and see the video. Being about the laziest person you know I take your word without video proof *Smile

 

VLC Media Player can play .trec files.