How to use disk duplication to deploy Windows 10

 Using Disk Duplication to Deploy Windows 10

When you install Windows 10  on several computers with identical hardware configurations, the most efficient installation method to use is disk duplication by creating a disk image of a Windows 10  installation and copying an image onto multiple destination computers, you save time in the rollout of Windows10  This method also creates a convenient baseline that you can easily recopy onto a computer that is experiencing significant problems.

Overview of Disk Duplication

Windows 10 includes a program named System Preparation (sysprepexe) that allows you to prepare master images of an existing Windows 10 installation for distribution to other computers by removing machine-specific information from the image. The first step of creating a disk image is for the administrator to install Windows10 onto a reference computer. The reference computer can contain just the Windows 10 operating system, or it can contain the operating system and any number of installed applications.

After the reference computer is configured properly, you will use the System Preparation Tool to prepare the computer for imaging. Many settings on a 10 computer must be unique, such as the Computer Name and the Security Identifier (SID), which is a number used to track an object through the Windows security subsystem. The System Preparation Tool removes the SID and all other user and computer-specific information from the computer, and then shuts down the computer so that you can use can use a disk duplication utility to create a disk image. The disk image is simply a compressed file that contains the contents of the entire hard disk on which the operating system is installed.

When a client computer starts Windows10  for the first time after loading a disk image that has been prepared with Sysprep, Windows automatically generates a unique SID, initiates Plug-and-Play detection, and starts the Mini Setup Wizard. The Mini Setup Wizard prompts the user for userand computer-specific information, sum as the following:

  End-User License Agreement (EULA) I Regional options

  User name and company I Product key

  Computer name and administrator password 

  Time zone selection

When you create a disk image, an the hardware settings of the reference computer become part of the image. Thus, the reference computer should have the same (or similar) hardware configuration as the destination computers. If the destination computers contain Plug and Play devices that are not present in the reference computer, they are automatically detected and configured at the first startup following installation. The user must install any non-Plug and Play devices manualy.

To install Windows 10 using disk duplication, you first need to install and configure Windows 10 on a test computer. You then need to install and configure any applications and software updates on the test computer.

How to Extract the Windows System Preparation Tool

You can use Sysprep along with other deployment tools to install Windows operating systems onto new hardware, Before you can use the Windows System Preparation Tool, you must copy the necessary files onto the computer you are using to create the master image. To copy the System Preparation Tool, you must extract the files from SupportToolsDeploy.cab on the Windows 10 DVD-ROM or It can be found in the \Windows\System32\sysprep folder.

 You can get more information about SysPrep at TechNet.

Preparing a Computer for the Creation of a Master Image by Using the System Preparation Tool

The System Preparation Tool was developed to eliminate problems encountered in disk copying. First of all, every computer must have a unique security identifier (SID). If you copied an existing disk image to other computers, every computer on which the image was copied would have the same SID. To prevent this problem, the System Preparation Tool adds a system service to the master image that creates a unique local domain SID the first time the computer to which the master image is copied is started.

The hard drive controller device driver and the hardware abstraction layer (HAL on the computer on which the disk image was generated and on the compute, to which the disk image was copied must be identical. The other peripherals, such as the network adapter, the video adapter, and sound cards on the computer on Which the disk image was copied, need not be identical to the ones on the computer on Which the image was generated because the computer will run a full Plug and Play detection when it starts the first time following installation from the image.

You can run the System Preparation Tool in its default mode by simply double-clicking the Sysprep.exe file that you extracted from Windows XP deployment tools. Table 3.] describes some of the optional parameters you can use when running Sysprep.exe.

 Optional Parameters for Sysprep.exe

Switch Description

/quiet Runs with no user interaction because it does not show the user confirmation dialog boxes

/nosidgen Does not regenerate SID on reboot

/pr1p Forces Setup to detect Plug and Play devices on the destination computers on the next reboot

/reboot Restarts the source computer after Sysprep.exe has completed

/noreboot Shuts down without a reboot

/forceshutdown Forces a shutdown instead of powering off

For a complete list of the switches for Sysprep.exe, start a command prompt, change to the Deploy folder or the folder where you installed Sysprep.exe, type sysprep.exe/?, and press ENTER.

How to Install Windows 10 from a Master Disk Image

After running Sysprep on your test computer, you are ready to run a non-Microsoft disk image copying tool to create a master disk image. Save the new disk image on a shared folder or CD-ROM, and then copy this image to the multiple destination computers.

End users can then start the destination computers. The Mini-Setup Wizard prompts the user for computer-specific variables, such as the administrator password for the  computer and the computer name. If a sysprep.inf file was provided, the Mini-Setup Wizard is bypassed, and the system loads Windows 10  without user intervention.

You can also automate the completion of the Mini-Setup Wizard further by creating  a sysprep.inf file.