Deployment Solution

At times IT personal needs to capture and image of a computer that does not have a management client installed. Here is a manual way to accomplish this need and could be part of a batch file that could automate these steps.

1. Windows Vista as an administrator execute the following BCDEdit commands:

   Bcdedit.exe -set {bootmgr} device BOOT
   Bcdedit.exe -set {default} device BOOT
   Bcdedit.exe -set {default} osdevice BOOT
   
   

2. Restart the client machine to a pre OS environment. In my case I use WinPE 2.1.
3. Capture the image using Rdeploy.exe or rdeployt.exe

Summary:

The BCDEdit commands remove the machine uniqueness and the image could be used on a different machine but the same type.

Optional:

I use the following batch file when executing the above steps:

REM Execute BCDEdit and prepare for imaging.
REM Find the system root and append system32 and BCDedit
%SYSTEMROOT%/system32/Bcdedit.exe -set {bootmgr} device BOOT
%SYSTEMROOT%/system32/Bcdedit.exe -set {default} device BOOT
%SYSTEMROOT%/system32/Bcdedit.exe -set {default} osdevice BOOT
shutdown /r

Optional:

The image could also be capture with imagex.exe