TESTING SYSPREP ON WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL ON A MULTI-BOOT SYSTEM
Purpose:
To verify the behaviour of sysprep on Windows XP Professional on a multi-boot system, and the use of images to install or to re-install Windows XP Professional onto such a multi-boot system.
Test machine:
Pentium III 866MHz machine with 20GB hard drive, 128MB RAM
Hard drive was partitioned in the following manner:
C: 3GB, Windows 2000 Professional
D: 5GB, Windows Server 2003 (Evaluation copy)
E: 5GB, newly installed Windows XP Professional (Evaluation copy BG… )
F: CD ROM drive
G:
3.5GB, NTFS partition
H : 3GB, FAT32 partition
Test Procedure 1:
After installing Windows XP Pro, I made sure everything was behaving properly. I did not activate it as I was doing this in a non-production test environment.
I ran the Setup Manager to prepare a sysprep.inf file. It does not matter where the deploy.cab files are extracted to. When sysprep is run, it puts the sysyprep.inf in this folder, and a copy in a newly-created sysprep folder under %systemdrive%.
I ran Setup Manager with the following settings:
Set Name, Time Zone and Administrator’s password, with the Product Key empty, computer name blank and the rest the defaults.
I ran sysprep with the following settings:
MiniSetup and PnP (Click Reseal after selection). Computer shut down after sysprep.
After reboot, the Mini Setup ran, asking for the Product Key (I entered BG… again) and so on. Upon reboot, Windows XP behaved normally.
Note: The e:\sysprep folder was deleted, but the deploy folder stayed put.
Conclusion: The sysprep program works properly (does not produce unexpected behaviour) when applied to an evaluation copy of Windows XP Professional in a multi-boot system as described above.
Test Procedure 2:
I proceeded to test image creation and restore of the Windows XP partition. I created the NTFS partition G: and the FAT32 partition H:. I used Ghost 7.0 to create an image of the Windows XP partition, using high compression and keeping the file in H:. The 1.3GB Windows XP (used space) image was 664MB.
I rebooted and logged in to Windows 2000 Pro, and deleted the system32 folder on E: and rebooted. I chose Windows XP and of course it would not start. Then I rebooted with the customized Ghost boot diskette, and restored Windows XP from the Ghost image. After the restore and reboot, Windows XP worked normally.
Conclusion: Applying an image to a partition on a multi-boot system to recover from a system fault, works normally as described above.
Test Procedure 3:
The final test was to run sysprep on Windows XP, shutdown and create an image, then use the image to “clone” XP on a different partition, which would simulate using the image method to install Windows XP on a multi-boot system.
I ran Setup Manager again with a different twist. Firstly, I deleted the deploy folder, and re-extracted the deploy.cab files, this time to a new e:\sysprep folder, and then ran Setup Manager. A new sysprep.inf file was created under e:\sysprep. Then, I ran sysprep and shutdown.
I booted up with the Ghost diskette, and created an image of this Windows XP on H: drive. This could be the master image for duplication (it can be transferred to CDs).
The next step was to use the master image to install Windows XP onto a new partition. I rebooted, and used Ghost to clone to the G: drive (partition 4). When cloning was completed, Windows XP was just sitting on this partition. I needed to boot into one of the Windows systems on the boot menu, and edit boot.ini manually to have another entry for the newly-cloned system. I booted intoWindows 2000 and changed boot.ini to host an entry for the new Windows XP on partition(4), and made it the default boot-up choice. When I rebooted the system, I chose the new XP, and it ran the Mini-Setup and subsequently behaved normally. The sysprep and Setup Manager files had been deleted, as intended.
Conclusion: Using the image method to install Windows XP onto a new partition on a multi-boot system will work as described. The installer has to edit the boot.ini file to add an entry for the new Windows system.