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Image Automatically without using USB or network boot
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Is it possible to image automatically without using a USB or PXE?
For example select a group (for example a lab) and push a new image to them. It can avoid manual work of going to individual devices to boot from a USB to re-image.
- Copy the boot file to a folder in C:\ drive
2. Boot into windows PE using ramdisk
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/563319/setup-bcd-to-boot-pe-from-ram.html
- Copy the boot file to a folder in C:\ drive
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If somebody is looking at a similar solution, you can use PowerShell to do this. This is not my script, but it works perfectly.
<# .Synopsis This script will create a ramdisk containing the boot.wim which the computer will boot to on restart. This script will work only on Windows Imaging environment. .Prerequisites - From the Windows PE boot USB, copy boot.wim in the Sources folder to C:\Sources on the target - From the Windows PE boot USB, copy the Boot folder to C:\ on the target .Notes Because "bcdedit /bootsequence" is used, the computer should boot back into Windows when restarted if imaging is cancelled. #> # Checks that Disk 0 is the boot disk. $DISKZERO = Get-Disk 0 If ($DISKZERO.IsBoot -ne $true) { Write-Host "Disk 0 is not the boot disk. Exiting..." Exit 999 } else { Write-Host "Disk 0 is the boot disk. Proceeding..." } # Create {ramdiskoptions} and configure bcdedit -create "{ramdiskoptions}" bcdedit /set "{ramdiskoptions}" ramdisksdidevice partition=C: bcdedit /set "{ramdiskoptions}" ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi # Add LiteTouch boot device to OSLOADER $Output = bcdedit -create /d "LiteTouch MDT" /application OSLOADER # Obtain LiteTouch boot device GUID $LTGUID = $Output | %{ $_.split(' ')[2] } # Configure LiteTouch to ramdisk boot bcdedit /set $LTGUID device "ramdisk=[C:]\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}" bcdedit /set $LTGUID osdevice "ramdisk=[C:]\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}" bcdedit /set $LTGUID systemroot \windows bcdedit /set $LTGUID detecthal yes bcdedit /set $LTGUID winpe yes # Adjust for UEFI vs Legacy BIOS types if ($env:firmware_type -eq 'UEFI'){ Write-Host "UEFI boot confirmed." bcdedit /set $LTGUID path \windows\system32\boot\winload.efi } Else { Write-Host "Legacy boot confirmed." bcdedit /set $LTGUID path \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe } # Force LiteTouch ramdisk on next boot and restart bcdedit /bootsequence $LTGUID shutdown /r /f /t 0