Building a Common Image - Developing a common software image for the HP dc7900, Elite 8000 and 6000 Pro desktop models

Supporting setup.exe installations
If you cannot install a device using an .inf file, you may be forced to rely on
setup.exe-based installation. You can either install these devices manually by
running the associated setup program, or you can hook these programs to run
automatically when the end-user unbundles the common image. There are several
ways of accomplishing this. More specifically, you can add the command-line for
each setup program in CmdLines.txt or SYSPREP.inf. For information on launching
executables from SYSPREP.inf or CmdLines.txt, please see the documentation
included in deploy.cab in the support\tools directory on the operating system
CD.
Using SYSPREP.exe
After all customizations have been made and drivers have been pooled in the
correct directory structure, the system is ready to be prepared for imaging. This is
accomplished by running a Microsoft tool named SYSPREP.
To start, create a directory on the root of the ―c:\‖ drive named ―SYSPREP‖. To
obtain SYSPREP.exe, insert the operating system CD obtained either from HP or
Microsoft into the CD-ROM drive and browse to the ―support\tools‖ directory. A
file named deploy.cab will be located in this directory. Double-click on deploy.cab
and view the files. Copy the files ―SYSPREP.exe‖ and ―setupcl.exe‖ to the
―c:\SYSPREP‖ directory.
Note:
The deploy.cab file also contains other useful files. For
Windows XP, it contains deploy.chm, a useful guide for
creating corporate deployment images and an answer-file
reference guide named ref.chm.
Creating SYSPREP.inf
SYSPREP.inf can be generated by setupmgr.exe, a tool located in deploy.cab.
However, HP strongly recommends that you use the SYSPREP.inf provided in
Appendix A: Sample Answer Files on p. 22 of this document as a baseline. For
advanced customization or functionality, you can make modifications to this copy of
SYSPREP.inf. For information on the settings used in this file, please see the
documentation included in the deploy.cab file. If you built the Plug-and-play driver
path according to this document, the provided SYSPREP.inf will work without
modification. Otherwise, you will need to ensure that the directory structure you
implemented is reflected in the OEMPnpDriversPath setting in SYSPREP.inf.
For Windows XP, please see the deploy.chm file included in deploy.cab.
Once SYSPREP.inf has been created, place it in the c:\SYSPREP directory.
Required SYSPREP.inf settings for Windows XP
The following settings should be used as a baseline in your SYSPREP.inf in order to
create a common Windows XP image. You can, of course, tailor this file to suit your