SmartDeploySupport

Hello, You will want to generate your answer file via the Deploy Wizard. When choosing the above language settings, the following is set in the answer file: <regional_settings skip="0"> <time_zone>(GMT+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna</time_zone> <input_locale>English (United Kingdom)</input_locale> </regional_settings> Please try that and let us know your results. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hi Darrin, If you're interested in restoring the laptops to their original OS version, license, etc., you will need to acquire recovery media from the OEM manufacturer of that device. If there was any recovery partition on the device previously, it would not have been preserved through a deployment. If you're okay with keeping the existing OS version/license on the device for resale, you can open an administrator command prompt, and execute the following commands: cd C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep Sysprep /oobe /shutdown This will run Sysprep, activate the Out-of-Box-Experience (OOBE), and shut down the system. The next time it is powered on, the user will be prompted to create a new user account, set computer name, etc. - all of the standard Windows setup settings for first time use. SmartDeploy Support Team TECH RESOURCES SmartDeploy User Guides DeployCentral Forum Platform Pack RSS SOCIAL

Hello, 1. We have seen this occur if anti-virus interfers or if the license life becomes corrupted somehow. To resolve, disable any anti-virus, and going to Control Panel ->Add/Remove and right click on the SmartDeploy and selecting "Repair" then recreate your boot media. 2. Running Diskpart is the most effective way to fix this as you're doing. This happens when the targets machine's drive structure needs to be recreated for whatever reason. You could create a pre-image task to do this if you do not want to do it manually. Also, if you haven't already upgrade to version SmartDeploy 1.1.5010 and that may fix the issue as well. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hi James, Thanks for reaching out. We'd like to run a few diagnostics to confirm - it's possible this is indeed a bug, but we'll need to rule a few things out to be sure. We'd like to have a look at the syntax of your PREIMAGE Task - please send your Answer File to support@smartdeploy.com. Alternately, if you're not using an Answer File, please include the exact text of your PREIMAGE Task (preferably copied and pasted). We'd also like to have a look at the Deployment log from this failure. Go ahead and run a test deployment on the device, with the SmartDeploy media as it is right now. Click through until you reach the failure state/message, and - in your email - please include a brief description of when this occurred. If the failure occurred while Deploy Wizard was still open, close Deploy Wizard, and complete the steps below, starting from Step 2. If the failure occurred after the deployment started, press and hold the power button to power off the system, then complete all steps below. For this procedure, you will need an external USB thumbstick plugged into the device to retrieve the log. 1. Boot to SmartDeploy media on the device. 2. Click the link at the bottom of the Welcome screen to open a WinPE command prompt. 3. Enter the following commands, pressing Enter after each one: C: [note that this refers to the drive on which Windows is installed – sometimes this may not be C:] cd C:\Windows\Debug Notepad Deploy.log 4. In the Notepad window, click File | Save As (or press Alt-F-A), and save the log to your external thumbstick – then attach this log to your reply. SmartDeploy Support Team TECH RESOURCES SmartDeploy User Guides DeployCentral Forum Platform Pack RSS SOCIAL

Hi John, You won't see the check box displayed if your image only has a OS partition. WDS only supports importation of single OS partitions. If you had a system reserve, or another partition you would see that check box displayed, which you would want to check in order to strip off the other partitions. In your case you can capture without that option and import the image in your WDS without issues. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hello, There is no option to do this in SmartDeploy. This is the default behavior of your BIOS. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hi Adam, I'm afraid the targeting of Disk 0 is an architectural feature - it can't be changed through any mechanism currently available in SmartDeploy. Creating separate partitions is not be a viable workaround - that would just deploy two partitions to Disk 0. I see you've mentioned changing the physical configuration of the disks as a possibility - is it possible to swap the position of the two drives? The assignment of Disk 0 is dictated by which port on the system board that the drive is plugged into. Assuming the drives are identical form-factor and in interchangeable slots, you can try swapping their positions, and see if it targets the SSD instead. If you want to deploy data to both drives, you can capture a VM that has multiple virtual hard disks attached (via a warm/online capture) - but the primary drive targeted would still be Disk 0, so the same underlying issue would need to be resolved first. Feel free to email us at support@smartdeploy.com if you have any further questions. SmartDeploy Support Team TECH RESOURCES SmartDeploy User Guides DeployCentral Forum Platform Pack RSS SOCIAL

This issue was resolved via phone. SmartDeploy Support

Hi jmp242, It's hard to say why the script might be failing externally - we'd have to have a look at it. If you want, go ahead and send it to us at support@smartdeploy.com and we'll let you know if we spot any potential problems. However, based on the task list you've provided, there's really no need to use an additional script. Domain-joining, setting a static IP address, and software installations can all be done via the Deploy Wizard. The first two are standard options - and the software installations can be added as Tasks at any stage of the deployment - Before or after the image is applied, during specialize/mini-setup, on first boot as system, or on first logon as user. Software installations are typically run during one of the last two phases. You just need to make sure that the deployment environment has access to the installation files, and add a silent (unattended) installation task to the Tasks tab, in the Deploy Wizard advanced options. SmartDeploy Support Team TECH RESOURCES SmartDeploy User Guides DeployCentral Forum Platform Pack RSS SOCIAL

Hello, Are you attempting to deploy Windows 7? If so, for 4th generation Intel Core processor machines, 2 updates are required for Windows 7 in order deployment to be successful: User-mode framework 1.11 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2685813) Kernel-mode framework 1.11 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2685811) These are mandatory from Windows Update, and if you’ve run all Windows Updates in your virtual reference machine then it should have them. You can confirm that these updates are installed by booting your virtual reference computer, opening Programs and Features | View Installed Updates, and searching for KB2685813 and KB2685811. If those updates are not present and installed, they should be installed from the links above, before capture and deployment. If those updates are present, please let us know and we can investigate further. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hello, The most likely cause of this issue is a missing network driver. If you can go ahead and email us the following logs (from the device) at support@smartdeploy.com, we can have a look at what might be causing the issue. C:\Windows\Debug\Deploy.log C:\Platform\Dism.txt C:\Windows\Inf\Setupapi.dev.log SmartDeploy Support Team TECH RESOURCES SmartDeploy User Guides DeployCentral Forum Platform Pack RSS SOCIAL

Hi John, Good to know - makes sense. It's indeed possible that one of your applications is causing the issue - some applications are friendlier to enterprise deployment than others as a part of the captured image. Typically, for complex app environments such as yours, we recommend that you start with a barebones Windows 8.1 system (with all updates installed), then add your apps 1-2 at a time, and try a test capture and deployment. If there is a failure at this stage, you should at least have a better idea of which app might be causing it. For such apps, it might be best to leave them out of the image, but include the installation files (generally in a folder in the root of C:\), then execute unattended installation commands as post-imaging Tasks (via the Deploy Wizard advanced options). Additionally, once you've found a deployment method that reliably completes, you can automate all of these steps via the use of Answer Files (see Appendices 3-4 in the SmartDeploy User's Guide). Before you rebuild your image, however, I do have two other diagnostic questions: 1. Which version of SmartDeploy are you running currently? To identify your SmartDeploy version, open Platform Manager and click Help | About Platform Manager. Note that if you've updated SmartDeploy, you must regenerate your boot or deployment media to take advantage of any new features or improvements. 2. Having you configured any sort of automatic computer naming convention as a part of your deployment? If so, what is this convention? This setting would be in the Deploy Wizard advanced options - the default option is to generate a random computer name, but I'm wondering if you've configured any other option instead. Glenn SmartDeploy Support

Hi John, Thanks for reaching out. A 150GB WIM is larger than we typically see for an image that was created in a virtual environment as a reference computer. May I ask what made it so large? Apps, file storage, etc.? Did you capture the WIM using the SmartDeploy Capture Wizard, or through some other method? Glenn SmartDeploy Support

Hello, Usually if there is anti-virus on the host or the actual image this error occurs. If you have AV on your host, disable and try to capture again. If on image, remove it and attempt to capture again. Another instance when we have seen this error is if the VM is in a bad state. We recommend starting the virtual reference machine, restarting it, then gracefully shutting it down if this is the case. Then again, attempt to recapture. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Mike, You do not need to run sysprep unless you're copying the default profile. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hello, Yes, upgrading to the latest version will help in those situations you described. Basically, when you upgrade you're upgrading to Windows PE 5.1 (Along with other fixes) which has built in USB support as well as more built in support for network cards. You can simply run the installer over what you have installed without issue. You will need to recreate your boot media once the new version is installed. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

With the release of SmartDeploy 1.1.4000, the Surface Pro 3 is now supported. The platform pack is on our website, and this blog post talks about deploying them. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Jinane, Please ensure the correct pack is imported into your default.ppk. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Unfortunately, you would have to create separate answer files along with separate boot media. If you would like your deployment to be unattended except for the "image select" page we do have the ability to do that, but you would have to manually choose an image, but everything else would be unattended. If you're interested, please let us know and we can follow up with instructions to do so. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hi Allen, You may be successful in starting your virtual reference machine, rebooting it via the Start menu, then once it's back to desktop, gracefully shutting it down via the start menu and recapture/deploy. If you still encounter issues, you may have to look what changed from the image that previously worked and the version you're attempting to deploy now. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hi Jim, Hardware encryption is tricky, but this might be possible, with a few dependencies. If Western Digital's hardware encryption can be decrypted via a Windows PE command line, then you can include any required WD utilities in your SmartDeploy media by putting them in a folder, and adding this folder under "Optional files" in the Media Wizard. Then you would need to boot to your SmartDeploy media, press Shift-F10 to open a WinPE command line, and initiate hardware decryption via the command line. If it is a complex command, we would recommend typing it out in a batch (.bat) file in advance (e.g. "Decrypt.bat") for ease of typing at deployment time. Once decryption is complete, you can close the Command Line, and click "Deploy an Image" to complete the process as normal. From the "Select an image" page, you would point to the newly decrypted external drive. You would also likely need to open the Advanced options, and browse to the location for the Platform Pack. I'm afraid we can't guarantee that this process will work, as we haven't tested in-house with WD hardware encrypted drives. But you should be able to download the SmartDeploy trial and test the approach above to make sure it functions as described. Note that SmartDeploy media can be automated through the use of Answer Files. For the setup described above, you would likely not be able to use an unattended installation, as this would skip past any opportunity to execute a command line task before the Deploy Wizard begins. However, you can use an Answer File for an attended installation that will pre-populate any option that exists in the Deploy Wizard, including the file locations for your image and driver packs. You can also add manual command-line tasks to occur at any stage in deployment. For more information about the Deploy Wizard advanced options and the use of Answer Files, take a look at Appendices 3-4 in the SmartDeploy User's Guide, available here. Feel free to reach out at support@smartdeploy.com if you have any questions - and if you're interested in seeing a live, end-to-end demo of SmartDeploy, just go to SmartDeploy.com and click on "Live Demo" to sign up. We're conducting one tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10AM Pacific time, so you can see the process and ask any additional questions live if you're interested. Regards, SmartDeploy Support support@smartdeploy.com 1-888-7DEPLOY

Good to hear! Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Gotcha! Thanks for the update Javier! SmartDeploy Support

Hi Javier, The “Windows could not parse or process the unattended answer file for pass [specialize]..” error normally points to a Windows PID issue. Did you enter the Windows Key when you captured your virtual reference machine or did you enter the key at deploy time? If it is baked into your image then you will have to recreate your WIM with a good key. If you are entering the key in the Deploy Wizard there might be a typo issue. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support

Hello, In order to connect to the VNC server you will need a VNC viewer that is compatible with the RC4 DSM plug-in. Next you will need the key file from SmartPE. You can copy it off a machine that is booted to SmartPE by pressing Shift + F10 to open a command prompt then changing directory to X:\Windows\System32, from there copy sdvncsvr.key. You will need to use this key with your VNC viewer. We would recommend using UltraVNC viewer. If you change the DSMPlugin to MSRC4 and copy the sdvncsvr.key file to UltraVNC’s program files folder and rename it rc4.key you should be able to connect. (As a note the latest version of UltraVNC dropped the RC4 Plugin so you will want to grab version 1.0.8.2). http://www.uvnc.com/downloads/ultravnc.html Or you don’t have to use a VNC viewer and can simply use manage.smartdeploy.com and click on Computer Management and your PE session should be displayed. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support