System Preparation Tool

[hondaman2003]

I was following the following page:

http://datanotes.wordpress.com/2007/11/26/how-to-deploy-xp-using-windows-deployment-services-wds-2/

I was trying to create an image for windows server 2008 deployment services not knowing what this was going to do to the windows xp machine. Now, after restarting the computer I get the system preparation tool. Which option should I click on?

Factory, Audit, or Reseal.

None of them seem like a real good idea. There are also the following check boxes:

don't reset grace period for activation
use mini-setup
don't regenerate security identifiers
detect non-plug n play hardware

There is also a drop down box that has the following:

Shutdown
Reboot
Quit

I obviously didn't realize what I was getting myself into but I need to have this screen stop appearing on my computer. It also appears to be preventing changes on the machine as they revert back after the next restart. I was simply trying to get an image that I could use on window server 2008 to boot from to get windows xp home installed over a network.

 

[DrB0b]

Your question would be best located in the server 08 forum: forum1674

"You don't know what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???

 

[hondaman2003]

The link I posted above was directions to follow on the windows XP machine not the server machine. The XP machine has the system preparation tool box coming up on restart now.

 

[DrB0b]

What Im getting at with the Server 08 forum is that people that do these types of installs will likely populate that forum and an answer is more likely to come there than here.

Hopefully one of said people are here as well and you may get your answer here....

"You don't know what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???

 

[hondaman2003]

Thank you for the advice. I will post there also.

 

[flyboytim]

What you have on the XP machine is a generalized, bootable sysprepped image - which can be imaged onto any hard disk to enable XP to be installed on that machine.

It is in an intermediate state - sysprep is a multistage operation.

On a suitable target machine with the image loaded and booted to the dialog screen you describe, select " Use Mini-Setup ", click RESEAL, and select OK to regenerate SIDs, then the machine should shutdown.

RESEAL finalizes the sysprep so that the sysprep does not start on the next reboot, but the XP setup instead.

The next reboot should be a rather long one, as the new system is written to disk, but the eventual result will be the standard XP setup interactive screens with available options dependent on the information given earlier in the sysprep configuration answer file, e.g. C:\Sysprep\sysprep.ini.

You should then install the motherboard chipset drivers to replace the standard IDE drivers, and any drivers for specific hardware like graphics and sound etc., and then run Windows Update...

 

[hondaman2003]

That all makes sense to me but the problem I have is, I ran this system preparation tool on a system that had everything already installed on it. Now I would like to stop that from coming up without doing anything to this system. I do not have another machine that I was going to use I was more experiementing with this one machine to attempt to create an image.