We created a short checklist of steps we take during the image creation/image updating process and thought I would share for everybody. Firstly when creating an image you obviously want to go ahead and set it up the way you want. What configurations should be set on the machines? What applications need to be installed? You should also ensure all of the latest relevant Windows Updates have been applied. Once all of the fun stuff is done, then there’s some steps you need to carry out to sysprep this baby.
Those steps are as follows:
- Ensure Your local administrator account are not locked or disabled
- Remove all Restore Points
- Log off as your domain account
- Log in as local admin account
- Remove the User Profiles
- Take it off the domain
- Clean up references to hard-coded username in registry.
- Finally you can sysprep by running sysprep.exe under C:\Windows\System32\sysprep
That’s that. On reboot you need to go through whatever steps are relevant for your deployment method. Likely you will need to hit F12 when the machine starts back up to kick off a capture (upload) of your imagine in a .wim format.