Custom Answer for Multiple Images

[bcjarrett]

I have a few images packed into a single .WIM, and I would like to setup the answer file I use to select different image names for a given computer.

This would hopefully let me consolidate everything into one WIM and one boot media. Is there any way to include some sort of if/then statement in the 'imagename' portion of the answer file?

<select_image skip="1">

<image_file>Z:\WIMs\Win8Deployment.wim</image_file>

<image_name>Win8</image_name>

</select_image>

In the above example I'd like to use Win8 on my XPS machines and Win8Reg on my HP Notebooks.

Thanks for any help with this matter.

[SmartDeploySupport]

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

[bcjarrett]

Ok, thanks for your help. Sounds like a great addition to the next release!

[eburnett]

Would be interesting to try, but doesn't seem practical. Seems you lose your indices either after setup or during capture - and it seems logical to lose your "baseplate" once you've authored significant changes to the OS (software and updates) - don't think there's a "real" way to make changes and put them back in, just minor stuff - (I think). SmartDeploy has been my sliced bread in this endeavor. But if you append to the wim (If you really, really, really had to) and refer back to the separate indicies, that would be interesting to know "what works".

Re: bluescreens, finally fought through my BSOD on a HP built OEM disc, switched to volume license - newer Dells didn't care these older Optiplexs did. Rebuilt on proper media, "seems" to have fixed the issue

Tried to find the best possible thread title to ask general questions about answer files:

Would like to suggest a few changes,

I would like to name machines by serial number, this actually means something to me (even though name will change) and I can do something with, replace WMI query AssetTag:
SELECT SMBIOS.SerialNumber FROM Win32_SystemEnclosure

SELECT SerialNumber FROM Win32_SystemEnclosure 

I prefer offline deployments - no dependencies and I can do them anywhere - however they are difficult to troubleshoot when bad media is involved. I noticed today I was having trouble with boot media, packages were not being installed on boot media (first selection). The option is available, but nothing is ever loaded (unless I choose offline boot media). When I opened up the xml I noticed this:

<platform_pack>[ImageFolder]</platform_pack>

This simply wont do - you are forced to enter network credentials in the Answer File wizard to map to the drive. Now if the image folder is on the network - you have to dump all your packages up there with your wim (which may be fine) - but for offline media - why not put it here where it fits the model:

<platform_pack>[AnswerFolder]\z\</platform_pack>

I don't like that sometimes my spanned wims are getting messed up. I find a lot of times it's because of the media, for UEFI boots (swm creation) is it possible to add a check integrity process? I'm assuming its doing a dism mount then splitting the wim 

Thanks