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#1400
I am sure Wolfgang has more experience in this and can answer more in-depth, here's what I know based on my own experience.
I create my hardware independent Windows images with Macrium and use the image resulted in deploying it instead of the clean install to all my computers, restoring the same image. It works well, without issues. In your example case when the hardware is identical on all machines it should be even easier because Windows don't have to be generalized.
To put it short, this is how I install Windows on one machine, capture the image and use it instead of a clean install on all other machines:
- Install Windows, enter Audit Mode from the first OOBE dialog
- Update Windows, install all software
- Customize (theme, desktop, colors, folder view settings, icon settings and so on)
- Run Sysprep with the GENERALIZE switch and my modified answer file
- Shutdown the computer
- Boot with Macrium boot disk
- Create the image, store it on external drive
- Reboot normally and let Windows finalize the installation
This gives me a clean installed Windows with all my software installed and personalization / customization done. Now I can take the external drive containing the Macrium image, connect it to the next PC, boot it with Macrium boot disk and simply restore the same image (deploy instead of clean install) which, because of the GENERALIZE switch I used when sysprepping is totally hardware independent and can be restored to any machine, real or virtual.
To do the same on an existing Windows system simply open an elevated command prompt and give this command:
Now boot with Macrium boot disk and make the image, it can be restored on any PC capable of running Windows.Code:%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown
In case of identical hardware this as I mentioned above is unnecessary; you should be able to use the image on any machine with identical hardware without sysprepping it.
Important to remember if generalizing a Windows image:
NoteWhat does Sysprep generalizing do to my Windows 7 setup?
- All system specific information is removed or uninstalled
- Security ID (SID) of your hardware setup is reseted
- All system restore points are deleted
- All event logs are deleted
- All personalization is removed (taskbar, toolbars, folder options, start orb etc.)
- Built-in administrator account is disabled (if it was enabled) and needs to be re-enabled if needed
What happens when booting first time after sysprep generalizing?
- First boot configuration is run
- New SID is created
- Re-arm counter is reseted if not already re-armed three times
- Windows 7 is booted using first boot default drivers and settings
You don't need to do that. You can simply run Macrium as many times as you need to, each time creating the image to a different storage location, or even simpler, create one image and copy it.
Kari