That worked. However is there a way to generalize the installation so that drivers are not imaged? I know there was a way to do this in the legacy version.
Ran into another snag, after you restore from the recovery partition reagentc disables itself again so my customer will not be able to restore their computer more than once from the parition. Ideas?
I didn't install anything but windows and then ran the installer to create the image right after. I don't understand what is disabling it either. I even tried a round about way of enabling reagentc and then formatting the "R" partition and then running the installer again but the installer disables it when its creating the image. Im at a loss as to what is causing this.
Appreciate the response. Good to know i'm not the only one with the Reinstall Windows issue - i'll also let you know if I find a method of customising the settings for that! If there are no reported issues with 150MB I'll give it a go. As for your suggestions: - I'll try reducing the image modifications and see what helps. - The images were not doing Updates and had just had a fresh reboot before running the script. Networks were not connected. - The images are as minimal as I am comfortable with (i.e. only drivers and updates installed) - as I said before I'll try without Drivers and then without Updates - the images were originally created using Virtual Machines so they are quite "clean" - I don't install from the Administrator account folders - most stuff is installed from a C:\Folder and some is via the network - I'm reluctant to include the drivers in the image as many of them are installed from Setup.exe 's which don't have the relevant INF files but I will see if including as many of them as possible in the image helps. (e.g. nVidia drivers have the associated software which doesn't work correctly if the drivers are installed from just the inf, same for AMD and Intel Graphics drivers as well as most of the discreet sound cards on the market and various other add-in cards) It's also difficult to include all of the relevant drivers for all of the different setup's I encounter as I currently have a hard drive with 20GB of data dedicated to drivers for systems with no duplication of drivers - it would be difficult to include this number of drivers into every image without conflicts occurring My current setup ensures that only the relevant drivers for that individual system end up on the system. Thanks for the suggestions and I'll let you know what eventually fixes the issue
@ TFL Since we don't know the cause you could try this work around...create a setupcomplete.cmd or if oem then firstlogon.cmd to run the REAGENTC /ENABLE command. Its not a real solution but a work around. @ AnarethoS Maybe you could add a check at the end of capture that if not enabled it would create a runonce to be ran before desktop shows in order to enable the recovery partition. In other words export info to txt file and findstr to see if it is enabled and if not then have it create a runonce to work around this issue.
Windows 8.1 RE Disabled Hi, so I am using the new alpha where you fixed the missing winre.wim by disabling the RE with reagentc /disable and it works fine. but when I test it as an end user the recovery is still turned off and if i try to /enable it i get: REAGENTC.EXE Windows RE must be installed on a simple volume formatted using NTFS. Is this an issue with the install or something I did?
@ RJOliver Sounds like your drive isn't formatted as NTFS but something else probably FAT32 I suspect. Reformat the drive as NTFS and try again. As far as the recovery being turned off, run from admin cmd prompt... REAGENTC /ENABLE you might not even need to run that cmd if your first format the drive as NTFS but if you do then run that cmd. Hope this helps some.
Thanks for the reply cerberus. It does show the drive is formatted in NTFS and Windows 8.1 installs and works fine using the unattend file included in the installer but it is still showing this error when i try to enable with reagentc. I tested this on 2 different laptops both new models from Dell and HP with the same issue. I just installed Win 8.0 and it is working fine with the exact same unattned. I am using ei.cfg in CORe OEM VL=0 mode not sure if that becomes an issue?
Think we need AnarethoS to look at this issue. This is beyond me but he should be able to shed some light on what is going on. He might need more info from you but lets wait for him to check into this thread and see his response. Sorry I couldn't help more.
Hello everyone. I'm trying to use this tool on a Windows 8.1 machine that is basically worthless using the OOB drivers. Touchscreen doesn't work, not even the KB/Mouse works! I'm using the 1.2.16 Alpha version however I am getting stuck at the "Install - Windows 8.1.cmd" step. Up until this point things are working great. However when I run this script I see an error about "WinRE.Wim not found". Did I do something wrong in a previous step?
@paulbram Looks like you didnt use the autounattend.xml file that does the partitioning. It is the only way to enter audit mode under win8.x. Make sure to use the correct one....gpt or mbr.
Thanks, I copied the autounattend.xml file from the gpt folder to the root of the USB key. Since this is a UEFI bios, I figured this was the correct one to use. Are you suggesting I should have used the MBR file instead?
I just tried it again, this time using MBR instead of GPT. Unfortunately the same exact thing happened. WinRE.wim is nowhere to be found! This is an x86 based atom/eMMC machine in case that makes any difference. Is there anything I need to do to prep for partitioning before starting this process? Or does the system nuke everything and start from scratch by itself?
Are you adding the autounattend.xml to the root of the windows 8.1 iso or windows 8.1 usb installer? And you should use gpt autounattend.xml. Also you might have to run in legacy mode instead of UEFI by changing that in your bios settings (if you have a choice in bios). Seems like I remember reading abuot that here in this thread somewhere.
I added the autounatend.xml to the root of the USB key. I double checked BIOS but didn't see anything in there that looked like legacy mode. Are there any logs or anyplace else I can check to try and understand why I'm not getting into Audit mode? Thanks for your help!
The setting is in bios somewhere like under advance settings. All bios are different. What type of bios do you have? Also make and model and I will try and do some research on it for you. Usually there is a setting in the bios. The only way to get into audit mode in win 8.1 is with the autounattend.xml file....its stated at microsofts site.
It is an "HP Envy X2" transforming laptop/tablet. I'll check again but I searched everywhere and couldn't find it. I would appreciate if you can help me figure this one out. Thanks!
Ok, it's interesting that you suggested disabling secure boot. Awhile back, I actually did that already. When I checked today looking for the legacy mode, I noticed that it was still disabled so I tried re-enabling it. I then started the process over again and unfortunately it was the same result with the missing WinRE.wim file. So, unfortunately with secure boot enabled and disabled I seem to have this same problem. Any other ideas?