I use sysprep when I have to install something you can't install offline, such as Office. It's really a lot faster, but harder to work with a sysprepped image. I personally never experience problems working with sysprep captures, but some of the ppl that download my stuff have complained that they cannot use stuff like rt7lite to go back and remove features or something... That's referring to win7. There's not really anything preventing me from doing sysprep captures for win8 without office, but since there's not really much of a speed increase, there's almost no incentive for me to do it. If I wanted to sysprep a bunch of custom drivers and programs, it would be perfect. You could, say, Install WinRaR, Office2013, KMS server service, DamnNFO viewer, hashtab, AMD Display drivers, etc. Then when you are happy with it, just don't generalize when you shut down. For sysprep on win8 I do an extra cleanupcomponents pass since it's available and I delete the windows update download folder, but there isn't really much junk beyond that. Obviously there is some dism log stuff, windows update log stuff, etc. I kind-of am reluctant to delete those. They don't seem to be harmful in any way, and for the really nerdy people, they can see if a certain KB file was installed, or if there were errors. Ahh.. you got me going off on a tangent... Easy to do I'm afraid, since it's my hobby... feel free to PM me if yer looking for pointers or wondering why I do things a certain way.
I'm sure this has been posted a billion times, but here's a script I use to check fresh installs to see which kb files are current. I first install a baseline image without newer updates. Then I go and do a first pass with Windows Update to check which kb files it wants to download. I then go into last month's kb files folder and copy them over to another directory one by one with my vmware off to the side. After I get all the first pass stuff copied over, (minus the online-only ones and the exe ones) I copy them over to my usb flash drive folder with my script in it. I then tell my vmware to mount my usb drive and I go and run the script as admin. I let it reboot when it's done, then I repeat for the 2nd pass. Usually 2 passes is all that is required to make sure, but I check a 3rd reboot, just to be sure. The script: Code: @echo off pushd %~dp0 for /f %%A in ('dir /b *.msu') do ( echo == Installing Updates == "%%A" ... C:\Windows\system32\wusa.exe %%A /quiet /norestart ) echo. echo ######################################## echo. echo == Updates installed == echo. echo == Press any key to restart ==&pause>nul echo. shutdown.exe /r /t 0 It simply searched the current directory for .msu files and tries to install them with wusa. Then when it cannot find anymore, it pauses and reboots your system when you press a key.
Murphy78 thanks for the explanation , one more doubt, you used the kbs mc rip repo or down the kbs from another source?Thanks
You could use them from the repo. I just download them from MS download center on microsoft.com, but it's nothing against mcrips repo. They are the same files. I have occasionally found a higher version of a msu file on mcrip that I didn't find on ms download center. There was some v4 file on his that I could only download v2 of on the msdlc. I don't know if they have some sort of tampering resistance like signed exe files, but it wouldn't surprise me. They really are very professional at MS.
Microsoft have two variations for updates, GDR and LDR. To put it in basic terms: GDR updates contain only the changes of the current KB article, and all preceding updates that affect those files that are distributed by Windowsupdate LDR updates contain not only the changes of the current KB article, but for all previous Windowsupdate releases and all previous hotfixes that include those files Due to the nature of the repository, which is to have all the updates that update files to their latest versions, and includes both Windowsupdate and hotfixes, it is ideal to install the LDR version of updates, otherwise it defeats the purpose of specifically using the repository. To have the LDR version used over the GDR version by using any other means apart from directly calling the LDR version using DISM, you would first need to install a superseded hotfix, then the update that you actually want to install, that way the LDR version is installed. The reason why the LDR version is installed by doing this is so the computer has both the fixes of the current update, plus the previous one you installed. This would mean installing a whole lot more updates than necessary. Using wusa will do the above (not utilise the LDR path unless the conditions are met). This would be fine if you just wanted to use the standard updates via Windowsupdate, but pointless in terms of the repository. To force install the LDR updates, you should use an installer capable of doing this. It's one of the specific things that my installer for Windows updates does. The WU satisfy stuff in the repositories will change shortly, and I am working on rewriting the WU satisfy stuff in my installer to accommodate these. I should point out that the WUsatisfy stuff has no functional impact on the computer, it is just so Windowsupdate doesn't show the updates. The changes to the repositories is to Microsoft's new system that will further save disk space.
Five new updates are available for Windows 8.1 preview. KB2863312 KB2866763 KB2867624 KB2868208 KB2868581 These updates are available from Windows Update or can be downloaded from the Microsoft Update Catalog.
They will also be available in my Win8.1 Preview update lists later today. Update - New update lists are now available, just click the top link in my signature!
Believe the servicing stack update is blocking the prowmc setedition when doing it offline guys. I'm resorting to doing a 2nd pass after flipping the index. Think it's 2821895 iirc
anyone know why i can not inject Windows8-RT-KB2823516-x64 into enterprise wim i get error.... Code: An error occurred applying the Unattend.xml file from the .msu
My install.wim went up about 300megs instead of the normal 40ish megs doing a 2nd pass with 2821895. I think I'm just gonna install it with wusa and a reboot during setupcomplete.
Is that after running the /startcomponentcleanup command? There is a temp file created under the WinSxS folder that disappears after a few days (intended behaviour), apparently you aren't meant to delete it manually. I'm guessing the reason why the wim is larger with 2821895 is something to do with this. Even if it isn't with that command run, the command basically 'finalises' the install, it's something that should probably be done before making the wim, not after installing Windows, simply because it takes a lot of time, and the purpose of making a pre-integrated wim is to save time! Of course, alternatively you don't have to use it at all, but then you end up using several gigabytes more space for your Windows install (especially after the temp file disappears). Not sure what the temp file actually does, it's possible that it could be 'safely' deleted if you're creating an install.wim.
Three new updates are available for Windows 8.1 preview. KB2870257 KB2871052 KB2871055 These updates are available from Windows Update or can be downloaded from the Microsoft Update Catalog.