Ghost Solution Suite

I need to capture an image and specify a unique unattend for the image.  I've placed my unattend local on the ready to capture image, and in the GSS console for the create image job in the Adv SysPrep Options it shows Cmd lIne Switches and ive tried "/unattend:C:\pathtounattend.xml", but i'm either missing something or doing it wrong.  There are zero examples or docs that i can find detailing what that page is actually doing or how it expects thes swtichecs to be passed.  I realize i can specify a unattend on deploy, but i need this capture to use a specific one so if the image is used in a standalone environment it wont have to connect back to the deployment server during deploy for the unattend.  I dont want to manually run sysprep either.  So is this possible?  

At the minmum i guess i could edit the unattend that GSS uses by default, but i cant find where its pulled from?  

Thanks,

Slade

Hello,

Is this GSS3? If so, custom unattend files are added in the Distribute Disk Image tasks. The answer file isn't processed until the machine is ready to go into production for the first time, so we inject it as part of the image deployment job. If you look at the advanced Sysprep settings for a Distribute Disk Image task, there will be the option to browse to your custom unattend.xml file.

Thank you,

Randy

Marking Randall's answer as the solution as Slade1040 hasn't come back on this one.

Sorry for the late reply. Yes its GSS3.   I understand you can specify a unattend during distribute.  What is the purpose of the  prepare using sysprep advanced options for a capture job then? the adv settings even has the option for sysprep cmd line swithces. So if i have a custom unattend that is local on the image and not being copied down from GSS share i would think that the cmd line i pass as capture would pass the cmds i insert into that box. I guess its a option that just doesnt work, or I'm misunderstaing the purpose the advc sysprep cmd line options on a capture job.  Since it doesnt work, i just used a run script job outside of the capture job to get the function i needed. 

Hi Slade,

 I understand you can specify a unattend during distribute.  What is the purpose of the  prepare using sysprep advanced options for a capture job then?

When images are prepared with sysprep, on first boot they will run a mini-setup and configure according to the unattend XML file. This file contains information relating to how each pass of the mini-setup should proceed.

See this blog on Windows7 -Untangling Scripted Installs, Sysprep and Configuration Passes for details as to how this all works.

If you don't capture an image with sysprep, then this process will not be initiated when you deploy that image to a computer. 

the adv settings even has the option for sysprep cmd line swithces. So if i have a custom unattend that is local on the image and not being copied down from GSS share i would think that the cmd line i pass as capture would pass the cmds i insert into that box. I guess its a option that just doesnt work, or I'm misunderstaing the purpose the advc sysprep cmd line options on a capture job.  Since it doesnt work, i just used a run script job outside of the capture job to get the function i needed

The sysprep command-line options are detailed here , and if you want to override the default you can. For example the default command switches passed to a Windows 7 machine by GSS to sysprep are,

 /generalize /oobe /quit /quiet /unattend:prod:\windows\system32\sysprep\unattend.xml 

And this you can absolutely override. If you want to use a different sysprep file for the creation process, you'd simply put this in the advanced box,

 /generalize /oobe /quit /quiet /unattend:prod:\windows\system32\sysprep\my_new_unattend.xml 

The important thing to note here is that if you are going to override the sysprep options, you have to put in all the options required to make sysprep work. I think this is where you've been going wrong -you've selected to override the symantec switches, but have omited to tell sysprep to generalize the OS etc.. 

If you are putting a new file in place for the sysprep process, then just copy this down to the client in a task in advance of the disk capture with the full sysprep command line switches and you should be good to go.

Thanks Ian, i was not putting in the full line of options. Wish this was better documented in the GSS docs.  Appreciate it.

Slade