margrave Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Where I work we plan on rolling out Windows 10 everywhere this coming summer. In the past we always used Ghost; however, it seems that it is now dead. I guess some companies just don't want to make money. I have been attempting to use DISM from Microsoft. I have gotten it to where I can capture a WIM image, but on using DISM to apply the WIM to a different machine Windows 10 always boots to a "Choose your Operating System" menu. This menu displays 2 Windows 10 options with the first one being the correct one on the primary volume, and the second option incorrectly just pointing to (\windows) with no drive letter. I can go into msconfig, and remove the extra entry there, but the original machine that the image was made from does not have this boot menu set. This makes me think that the menu is being created somewhere in my process. It's got to be my sysprep answer file, the DISM capture of the image, the Diskpart to ready a disk, the DISM to apply the image, the BCDboot to get the image bootable in post, or something completely different. I have no idea. I've worked on this all day with no luck. Does anyone have any idea what I've done wrong? What I'm missing? I'm about ready to just quit computers all together now. It's only been 7 hours working on it. That's all. Same boot menu, Every time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gary7 Subscriber² Posted February 17, 2016 Subscriber² Share Posted February 17, 2016 I use Macrium Reflect, there is a free version and it works great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+rdlenk Subscriber² Posted February 17, 2016 Subscriber² Share Posted February 17, 2016 I know this might not be exactly what you are looking for but using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit makes all of this very easy to do. MDT is free as well. We are also planning to roll out Windows 10 this summer to a few hundred computers and will be using MDT and SCCM to do it. There are a lot of video guides online on TechNet that really walk you through every step of deployment. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dn475741 At this link you can download the toolkit and there are links to guides on how to deploy Windows 10 using the toolkit. I have found that imaging tools like Ghost died out because of the new imaged based deployment system introduced with Vista. Microsoft just made it so much easier to use. binaryzero and Aergan 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
margrave Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 (edited) I got DISM, and our current Win PE WIM for our PXE from the Windows ADK. So far I disagree greatly with DISM being easier than Ghost. This has been a nightmare. I have to use Diskpart to prepare a drive seperate! That's just crazy. Currently this has been far more complicated than Ghost, for what appears to be no extra gain. Edited February 17, 2016 by margrave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
margrave Posted February 18, 2016 Author Share Posted February 18, 2016 To anyone else curious about this issue, I believe I have this correctly working now. It appears that the issue was with running the BCDBoot post the DISM apply image. Turns out that if you only have one partition you don't need to run BCDBoot at all! binaryzero 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 ^ Good stuff. Yeah Ghost died, I dunno, 10+ years ago? The best way to deploy Windows will be using the MDT or SCCM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+rdlenk Subscriber² Posted February 19, 2016 Subscriber² Share Posted February 19, 2016 If you don't want to use the full MDT for some reason you can at least take your captured image and use the normal setup files that a retail ISO uses. All you have to do is replace the Install.wim file with your own custom image. If you even name them the same then setup.exe will use it automatically. You can then use the normal setup process to wipe and partition the drive and apply the image. This is why the new imaged based deployment system killed off Ghost and several other products because a simple custom setup experience like this was impossible out-of-the-box pre-Vista. There are some things you have to specifically do for your custom install.wim when you capture it such as identifying the edition of Windows it is but that requirement may even be gone with Windows 10 setup files. Further, you can automate all of the settings using unattend.xml created by the Windows System Image Manager (part of ADK). However, this is why MDT is so great, it literally does all of this for you and more. I am not going to say using MDT is not complicated and that there aren't a lot of steps but compared to the alternatives and the way things used to be done it is so much easier and far more powerful than ever before. I have spent a lot of time doing this from booting Ghost from floppies to image 98 SE to creating 100% automated zero touch installs that allow the end user to pick and choose what OS they want to use (well, as long as its Windows 7 and up anyways ) along with what apps they want installed. I would be more than happy to answer any specific questions or help out if you need but I also recommend checking out some of the videos on TechNet or recordings from TechEd/Ignite because that is how I learned and they are way better at explaining things than I am. Here is a good 300 level video from TechEd Europe 2014 on Channel9 which walks you through nearly every step. There is also a 400 level video from Ignite 2015 which is Windows 10 Deployment for Experts which went very deep into MDT and SCCM also on Channel9 that I recommend if you need to go even deeper into the tools but isn't needed for simple deployments. Both videos feature Mikael Nystrom who appears in a lot of videos and session on Windows Deployment, I actually attended an all day session he was leading at Ignite and learned a lot from him. https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Europe/2014/WIN-B314 https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK4301 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
margrave Posted February 19, 2016 Author Share Posted February 19, 2016 Thanks for those links! I'll pass them on! The setup for MDT, and SCCM isn't up to me at my job. And if it was more user friendly, we might not have alternatives like Macrium Reflect, Clonezilla, Acronis True Image, FOG, KACE K2000, etc. Reminds me of the that Krappy Management System of theirs. About Ghost death: From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_(software) Discontinued on April 30, 2013[3](consumer) Ongoing (enterprise) Last release: December 17, 2015; 58 days ago (enterprise) I requested this last release for the Windows 10 deployment, and was told there's no funds for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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