Capture Images Using the Image Capture Wizard

The following instructions pertain to OS image capture for ImageX, Windows Setup, or Legacy deployment.

To use the HPCA OS Image Preparation Wizard:

Note: If you are capturing an image locally, before continuing, set the reference machine to boot from the CD-ROM/DVD drive. You must do this because the ImageCapture media is bootable. When you run the ImageCapture media, it reboots the device to upload the image.

  1. Insert the ImageCapture media into the reference machine. See “Product Media” in the HP Client Automation Enterprise OS Management Reference Guide if you need more information about where to get this media.
  2. On the ImageCapture media, go to \image_preparation_wizard\win32, and run oscapture.exe.

    Note: If the HPCA agent is not installed on the reference machine, you will see the following message.

    This computer does not have the Application Manager installed. You may not be able to manage the target computers with the OS Manager product.

    If you want the device to be managed, you must install the HPCA agent before running the Image Preparation Wizard.

    Note: The oscapture.exe program requires the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 (or later), which 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

  3. Click Next.

    The End User License Agreement window opens.

  4. Click Accept.

    The deployment methods that may appear are:

    If a deployment method is not supported for this OS, it will not appear.

  5. Select the deployment method that you want to use, and click Next.
  6. Type the IP address or host name and port for the HPCA server. This must be specified in the following format:

    xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:port

    The HPCA server port used for OS imaging and deployment in an HPCA Core and Satellite installation is 3466. In an HPCA Classic installation, port 3469 is reserved for this purpose.

  7. Click Next.
  8. Type a name for the image file. This is the image name that will be stored in the <InstallDir>\Data\OSManagerServer\upload directory.
  9. Click Next.

    The Span Disk Image window opens.

  10. Type the amount of the total uncompressed disk space (in MB) to use for each image file. Type 0 (zero) if you do not want to create a spanned image.

    Use spanned images to break the image file into smaller segments. Each segment of a spanned image is restricted to 4000 MB. This is helpful so that you can comply with the restriction of whole images needing to be less than 4000 MB so that they can be stored in the CSDB.

    If this value is set to 0 (zero), and the size of the image resource files exceeds 4000 MB, the image will be spanned automatically.

  11. Click Next.

    If appropriate, the Additional Sysprep Options window opens. The text box is pre-filled with a command that clears all the SIDs to prepare the machine for capture.

    If you want, you can type additional options to pass to Sysprep using a space as the delimiter.

    Caution: This is an advanced option. Any additional options that you add or changes that you make are not validated and may result in image capture or deployment failure. Use with caution or when instructed to do so by HP Software Support personnel.

    Review Microsoft's documentation for information about additional Sysprep options

  12. Click Next.
  13. If you chose ImageX for the deployment method, the Select Image Preparation Wizard payload window opens with the default option selected.

    Note: The payload contains Local Service Boot (LSB) data to be delivered to target devices.

  14. Type a description for the image file and click Next.

    The Select the Windows Edition window may open.

    Select the Windows edition that you are capturing and click Next.

  15. The Options window may open.

    Note: If you do not have the HPCA agent installed, you will not see the Perform client connect after OS install check box. It is important to have this agent installed only if you are using the Legacy method to capture an image.

  16. Select the appropriate options.

    Note: The options appear depending on the operating system that you are capturing.

  17. Click Next.

    The Summary window opens.

  18. Click Start.
  19. Click Finish.

    If you are working with an APIC device, the Make Image Compatible with PIC window opens. Note that Windows Vista (and later) operating systems can only be captured from and deployed to APIC compatible devices.

  20. If necessary, select the Make image compatible with machine with PIC check box.

    Caution: Microsoft does not recommend this. Be sure to see their web site for more information before making this selection.

  21. Click Next.

    If you selected the check box in the figure above, the Select Windows CD window opens.

  22. Browse to the Windows CD-ROM and click Next.
  23. Click Finish to run Sysprep.

    The Image Preparation Wizard will start Sysprep; this can take 15-20 minutes to complete, depending on the size of the image.

    Note: A message pops up if insufficient space is available on the System Reserve partition to hold the LSB injection files. You can either ignore this message or stop the Image Preparation Wizard. If you ignore the message (and have created enough space on this partition) the Image Preparation Wizard will continue. Otherwise, it will fail indicating that it cannot inject the LSB files.

    During the capture, status information is displayed on the Service OS screen. See About the Windows PE Service OS Screen for more information. Sysprep will reboot the device when complete. You may need to click OK to restart the device.

    Note: If you are using the audit mode (previously known as factory mode), the machine will reboot to the operating system with networking enabled. After your customizations are completed, you must put the Image Capture CD/DVD into the machine and then go to a command prompt and run

    sysprep.exe –reseal –reboot

    After Sysprep restarts, the image must be uploaded to the server.

    Caution: For Legacy capture mode, if the device does not boot to the CD (boots to operating system instead) you will need to restart the preparation process.

    Then, the device will connect to the network, and store the image on the HPCA server

    Note:

    • The upload of the image may seem to take a long time. However, it is not the upload that is taking a long time, but rather the compression of the image and the optimization for compression of the unused disk space (especially if there is a lot of free disk space). This happens during the transfer of the image and therefore, the network pipe is not a bottleneck. Transfer speeds will be approximately 300 KByte/sec to 1MByte/sec or more but may vary depending on processor speeds and your network environment.
    • You may want to create copies of the files stored in the \upload directory so that you can retrieve them if necessary.

    The Image Preparation Wizard connects to the network and stores the image on the HPCA Core in the following directory:

    <InstallDir>\Data\OSManagerServer\upload

    When the upload process is complete, you will see the following message:

    **** OS image was successfully sent to the HPCA OS Manager Server.

Next, you will want to publish your image to the CSDB. See Publishing.


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