Prepare the Reference Machine

Before installing the operating system, make sure that the OS partition on the reference machine should be aligned to 4 KB boundary. To prepare the reference machine, perform the following steps:

  1. Install the operating system from the original product media. The reference machine must be capable of running the operating system you are installing. Make sure the reference machine is using DHCP.

    Caution: Store the OS on the C: drive. It is the only drive that will be captured.

  2. Customize the OS as necessary. This may include installing a set of basic or required applications. Be sure to include the latest service packs for the OS and applications and all required drivers for the devices to which you will deploy the image. The following Microsoft knowledge base article contains information about including OEM drivers for Windows OS installations:

    Article: 314479 - How to Add OEM Plug and Play Drivers to Windows XP

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314479

  3. Make sure that the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 (or later) is installed. The .NET Framework is available at the Microsoft download center:

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads

    To determine which version of the .NET Framework is present on the reference machine, list the folders in the following directory:

    %SYSTEMROOT%/Microsoft.NET/Framework

  4. If you plan to use the Legacy method to deploy this image, you must install the HPCA agent on the reference machine. This is not necessary for Windows Setup or ImageX deployments, because HPCA requires you to publish the agent along with the OS image for Windows Setup or ImageX.

    For Legacy deployment only:

    Install the agent from the HPCA installation media as per your requirements—at a minimum, you must install the Application Manager and OS Manager agents. These are required so that when the OS image is deployed, the device can connect to HPCA server. If you need to update the agents, you must use agent self-maintenance.

  5. Configure the BIOS power management so that the device does not power down after a few minutes of keyboard or mouse inactivity before the upload process to the HPCA server is finished.
  6. Keep the image file size as small as possible. The ideal configuration is a partition just large enough to fit the operating system, plus additional space for the HPCA agent.

    Note: For Windows operating system before Windows 7, HP supports deploying the image to the primary boot partition of the primary boot drive.

    Caution: To successfully capture an image using the Windows Setup deployment method, you must have sufficient free disk space in the OS partition on the reference machine. For example, to capture a 7 GB image, you will need 50-60 GB of free disk space.

    The following steps help to minimize the size of the .WIM image file:

    1. Create free space.

      HP recommends that after you have created the smallest partition with the least amount of free disk space as possible, set ExtendOemPartition = 1 in the [Unattended] section of the Sysprep.inf file to allow for the small image to be installed on a target device with a much larger drive.

      When ExtendOemPartition= 1, the Microsoft Mini-Setup Wizard will extend the OS installation partition into any available non-partitioned space that physically follows on the disk. The HPCA agent can then use the free space on the volume for application installations.

    2. If you are using a laptop, disable hibernation.
    3. If necessary, remove the recovery partition.
    4. Disable the paging file. The page file will be enabled automatically when mini-setup is run after the deployment.
    5. Turn off System Restore.
    6. Turn off Indexing Service and Disk Compression.
    7. Turn off On Resume Password Protect.


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