Sysprep & Capture thick image

Back to ConfigMgr main menu

Back to MDT Menu

In my experience it is best practice to capture your reference images using MDT build and capture task sequence. However, every now and then, you can be in a situation where a customer has provided a pre-built image (often using another deployment solution) and you have to capture this to a WIM file.

For this, you use a Sysprep & Capture task sequence. It's also an easy solution to implement.

Right click Task Sequences and choose to create one.

Enter a suitable ID and name.

Choose "Sysprep & Capture".

Choose the OS to match what you will be capturing.

No need to specify the product key.

Enter your details (you must enter details in each box to be able to continue).

No need to specify administrator password.

Review the summary and click Next.

Process has completed.

See the Scripts folder in the Deployment share. LiteTouch.wsf is available.

Now lets capture the thick image. Open a command prompt "As Administrator" on the reference computer. First, map a drive to the deployment share, so that we can enter credentials.

Then execute the following command:

cscript.exe \\UNC path\DeploymentShare$\Scripts\LiteTouch.wsf

Script runs.

We are presented with a menu of available task sequences. Choose "Systprep & Capture".

Enter local administrator password.

Choose to capture an image of the computer. Enter a location and file name.

Specify your network credentials.

Review the summary and click Begin.

The task sequence starts. Sysprep is executed. The computer then restarts and boots into Windows PE.

The image is being captured.

The task sequence has completed. You can now restart the computer - we do not need it any more.

Image file (.WIM) is now available to be imported into ConfigMgr.