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Capturing a Master Image

PSImage is not supported by FileWave Support so please do not submit tickets with them about it. The information provided here is for educational purposes only. If you would like to purchase professional services hours for consulting assistance setting up PSImage or customizing it please contact professional.services@filewave.com with your request. If you have existing unused professional services hours you may be able to use them for this purpose. Any feedback on PSImage can also be sent to the same email address. Any work on this would be done on Discord or in working with Professional Services.

Prepping your reference PC (VM or physical) for image capture

  1. Set up a VM or physical PC and install Windows 10 x64 or Windows 11 x64. Please note that older versions and 32-bit versions of Windows have not been tested and will likely not work with this solution. The first account you create during Windows setup will be your default local administrator account that will remain on your PCs after reimaging.
  2. Place your unattend.xml sysprep answer file in the sysprep folder on the psimage share or the Imaging volume of your USB thumb stick (if imaging locally). You can use this generic answer file if you do not already have one. Edit the file in a text editor to adjust the time zone. Do not include domain join information in your sysprep answer file. That should be handled as a fileset. The device rename happens post-imaging with the local fwadmin account which is not able to modify Active Directory.
  3. Install all missing Windows updates to clear out the reserved storage. Sysprep will fail on Windows 11 if there are any pending OS updates stored in the reserved storage. If your reference system is a VM, it's probably a good idea to take a VM snapshot now after all OS updates have been installed but before the system has been sysprepped.
  4. Open a PowerShell session with admin privileges, connect to the psimage share, and navigate to the sysprep folder. If imaging locally change directory to the sysprep folder on the Imaging volume of the USB thumb stick.
  5. Run the prep_ref_vm.ps1 script. It will create a fwadmin account with a password of "filewave". You may have to set the execution policy to bypass so you can run PowerShell scripts.
  6. Log out of the reference system and log back in as fwadmin. This lets you skip the new user login assistant during post-imaging on reimaged clients.
  7. Log out and log back in under the default local admin account. In a PowerShell session with admin privileges connect to the psimage share and run prep_ref_vm.ps1 again to sysprep. If imaging locally change directory to the sysprep folder on the Imaging volume of the USB thumb stick instead.
  8. If sysprep fails, run remove_app.ps1 from the the sysprep folder to view the setuperr.log and review error messages.
    1. If the failure was due to reserved storage being in use, check Windows Update and install all remaining updates.
    2. If the failure was due to an application being installed for a user but not provisioned for all users, remove it using the Remove app option in remove_app.ps1. Repeat this step until sysprep runs successfully.
  9. The system will shut down upon successful sysprep.
  10. If this is a VM, it's probably a good idea to take a snapshot of the VM in its shut down sysprepped state in case the reference VM ends up booting into the OS for some reason, as the OOBE can take a while to complete before you can re-sysprep again.

Capturing a master image from a reference VM

  1. Attach the WinPE_amd64.iso file you built previously to your Windows VM and boot from it.
  2. You may be prompted to enter the name of the server, share name, and credentials, depending on how config.ini is set up.
  3. At the main PSImage menu select the option to capture a disk image.

To edit your existing ISO

If you need to make changes to your imaging environment in the boot.wim within the ISO for any reason, follow the steps below.

  1. Download and install AnyBurn.
  2. Pick Browse/Extract image file.
  3. Select the WinPE_amd64.iso file and click the Open button.
  4. Browse to CD_ROM\Sources, select boot.wim, and click Next button.
  5. Select desktop folder, check Extract only selected files and folders, and click Next button.
  6. Mount the boot.wim file, and modify the config.ini with the instructions at Building Your Imaging Environment. You will have to change the "/ImageFile:" argument to point to the path of your boot.wim file extracted from the ISO.
  7. Open WinPE_amd64.iso in AnyBurn, delete the existing boot.wim file, and the use the Add button to replace it with the updated boot.wim file you just edited.
  8. Output the changes to the existing ISO and overwrite it.

Capturing a master image from a physical reference PC

  1. PXE boot the PC or boot it from a USB thumb stick.
  2. You may be prompted to enter the name of the server hosting the psimage share, depending on how config.ini is set up.
  3. At the main PSImage menu select the option to capture a disk image.
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