Creating an Install Image from a Windows Server 2008 Reference System

Now that you have a Capture boot image, you can start creating Install images. This is done by capturing an image of a syspreped reference system, and it can be done for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The reference system is then started up in PXE boot mode so that it can begin uploading the image.

NOTE: This exercise creates an Install image for WDS-it does not prepare a reference system using sysprep. Review Microsoft's documentation to learn how to use sysprep on each respective operating system for which you want to create an Install image.

In this exercise, we create an Install image for Windows Server 2008.

1. Prepare your reference system by installing Windows Server 2008 and any additional application you want to load.
2. Open the command prompt, change the directory to %systemroot%\system32\sysprep, and run the following:
   Sysprep /OOBE /Generalize /Reboot
3. When the computer restarts, bootup using the network interface card (NIC) into PXE mode. Usually this is done by pressing F12 during bootup or changing your boot priority in BIOS to boot using the NIC first.
4. If multiple boot images are available, a menu will present all the possible boot options. Select the name of your Windows Server 2008 Capture image.
5. Open the Windows Deployment Services Management console.
6. Expand your WDS server and right-click Install Images.
7. Select Add Image Group and enter LABTEST IMAGES in the dialog box. Then click OK.
8. After the Capture boot image has finished loading using TFTP, you will see a Windows Deployment Services Image Capture Wizard. Click Next on the Welcome screen.
9. In the Image Capture Source screen, select the volume you want to capture (this should be the volume where your system files are located) and enter the Image Name and Image Description. Click Next.
10. On the Image Capture Destination screen, click Browse and type in the path and filename where the image will be stored.
11. Check the Upload Image to WDS Server checkbox.
12. Enter the server name of your WDS server, and click Connect. If prompted, enter domain credentials of an account with permissions to upload images (typically an administrator account). Select the Image Group Name from the drop-down list and click Finish.
13. After the image has been created, go back to the WDS Management console and expand your server on the left pane.
14. Expand the Install Images folder.
15. Right-click the Image Group folder to which you want this image added (in this case, LABTEST IMAGES), and select Add Install Image.
16. Browse to select the newly uploaded Install image. This should be in your Remote Install folder under the \Images\LABTEST IMAGES folder (where LABTEST IMAGES is the name of your Install image group). Then click Next.
17. Click Next on the List of Available Images screen.
18. Review the summary; then click Next.
19. Click Finish.