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Best Practices for image capture

Best Practices for image capture

Description

This will cover the best practices for capturing a Windows image with Asset Reimaging.  

This has been revised for Windows 11 24H2

 

Requirements

  • A USB stick (8+GB).

  • A regular machine running Windows. This machine will be used to download the Windows Media Creation Tool (MCT) and format the USB stick with it.

  • A reference machine, this machine needs to be compatible with Windows 11, it will be reinstalled with a new Windows 11 operating system so, make sure that it does not contain important data.

  • A Blancco Asset Image Capture tool (BAIC), this image may sit on a PXE server or on a second USB stick (please refer to the instructions to create a BAIC image).

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Download the Windows Media Creation Tool for Windows 11

    1. https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2156295 

  1. Create a bootable USB with the MCT 

  1. Boot the reference machine with the USB stick prepared with MCT

  1. Follow the on-screen instructions and choose Windows 11 Home as the OS to install

    1. If you are unable to select Windows 11 Home, you may need to change the reference device or use a VM to install Windows 11 Home

      1. Alternatively, you may reference How to force Windows Home on a device

  1. Once the machine finishes installing Windows 11 and boots to the OOBE screen (Out-Of-Box Experience, setup process guiding you through region/language/keyboard, network, etc.), do not engage in the OOBE and press instead the following keys

    1. CTRL+SHIFT+F3

      1. This will boot the machine to Audit Mode 

  1. If you need to capture a Home image first:

    1. Use the sysprep box on the desktop, check the “Generalize” box and select “Enter System Audit Mode”. From the last drop-down select “Shutdown”, then hit OK.

    2. Once the reference machine shuts down, you will need to reboot it with BAIC:

      1. If the BAIC image sits on a PXE server, connect the reference machine to the PXE server and PXE boot BAIC on it

      2. If the BAIC image sits on a USB stick, connect the USB stick to the reference machine and boot BAIC on it

      3. Once BAIC is booted, capture a Windows 11 image with it, you can transfer it to its dedicated network share

    3. If you also need to capture a Pro image, reboot into Windows once the capture process has finished

    4. Once the machine boots back into audit mode, run the following command in CMD to change the edition to Pro

      1. Dism /online /set-edition:Professional /accepteula

      2. After the command is finished, it will ask you to reboot the machine

      3. Once the machine reboots, open Run (WIN+R) and type “winver” to verify the edition has changed to Pro

    5. Repeat 6a and 6b to capture the Pro image 

  2. If you only need to capture a Pro image, simply follow 6d-i-iii and then 6a and 6b