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Capture Windows 7 Using SCCM 2012 R2

Prajwal Desai

In this post we will see the steps to capture windows 7 using SCCM 2012 R2. This post is different from the one which shows the steps to
build and capture the operating systems using SCCM 2012 R2. We will not be using build and capture approach here rather we will capture
a reference operating system, i.e. capture windows 7 using SCCM 2012 R2 and we will also see how to deploy the same using SCCM 2012
R2 in the next post. Please note that the computer operating system that we are going to capture should not be part of domain, else the
sysprep fails during this process. So you capture a computer that has windows 7 installed (along with softwares like office, adobe reader etc)
which is not joined to the domain. At any point of time you can check the step by step guide for SCCM 2012 R2 which contains all the posts
related to SCCM 2012 R2.

We will first create a task sequence media and create a capture media which is in saved .iso format. This .iso file contains the necessary files
and instructions to capture a reference operating system. The same .iso file captures the operating system and stores the captured OS
in .wim format. Once we get the .wim file we will import the file to SCCM 2012 R2 and we can use this .wim to deploy this OS to another
computer either by using SCCM or WDS.

The first step involves creating a capture media which is in .iso file. Launch the ConfigMgr console, click on Software Library, expand
Overview, expand Operating Systems, right click Task Sequences and click on Create Task Sequence Media.

Type of Media – Select the type of media as Capture Media. Click Next.
Media Type – You can select either USB flash drive or CD/DVD. I have tried using USB flash drive and even that works. In this example we
will choose CD/DVD, and we will store the media file in one of the shared location on SCCM server. You can choose to store the capture
media on any shared location, it may not be necessarily SCCM server. One important thing here you must save the capture media with .iso
extension. Click on Next.
Selecting Boot Image – This is very important step. Select the Boot Image by clicking on Browse. Select Boot Image (x64) and for DP
click on Browse and select the desired DP. Click Next.

Note

You must first enable the command support on both the boot images(x64 and x86) and then distribute it to the distribution point. To enable
the command support right click on each of the boot image, click on properties and under Customization tab check the box Enable
Command Support (testing only). Enable command support for both the boot images. By default the boot images are not distributed to DP
and if you don't distribute the boot images you will not be able to select the DP in the below step. To distribute the boot images to DP, right
click on each boot image and click Distribute Content.
The capture media has been created by the wizard. Click on Close.
After creating the capture media we will now mount the capture media (.iso file) on the windows 7 machine and run the image capture
wizard. In this example I have a virtual machine which has been installed with windows 7 professional SP1 x64 OS and we will be capturing
this computer OS image. If its a physical machine you can burn the capture media .iso to a CD and insert it in the CD tray and run the image
capture wizard. If its a virtual machine you can mount the .iso file by providing the path where the capture media .iso file exists. On a virtual
machine when you mount the .iso file by providing a shared location, it asks for a user account to access the .iso file, provide a domain user
account which has enough permissions to access the folder where the .iso file exists.

Once you mount the capture media on a windows 7 machine you will see the autorun box. Click Run TSMBAutorun.exe, you will see the
Image Capture Wizard. Click on Next.
Image Destination – Provide a folder path where the captured image should be stored. The name of the captured image should have .wim
as extension. Also provide a user account that has enough permissions to store the captured file to the shared folder. Click Next.

Image Information – Provide the image information such as Created by, Version and Description. Click on Next.
Click on Finish to complete the Image Capture Wizard. Note that we have just run the image capture wizard, in the next step sysprep
captures the OS.

In the below screenshot we can see that the sysprep command is running. Wait for the computer to restart automatically where the actual
capture process begins.
The computer restarts and we see that the wizard now starts capturing volume and the OS. This process took around 25 minutes to
complete in my lab setup.

Alright, we now see that the windows 7 OS image has been captured and saved to the destination folder. Click on OK. The computer now
restarts and enters Out of Box experience (OOBE).
Once we have got the .wim file, we can import the .wim as operating system image in SCCM 2012 R2. To import the operating system
image, right click Operating System Images, click on Add Operating System Image. Enter the path where the captured .wim file is
present. Click on Next.

The name and version is picked up automatically, click on Next.

The operating system image has been imported successfully. Click on Close.
After importing the image the next step is to distribute the image to the DP. Right click on the windows 7 image and click on Distribute
Content.

Add the DP and click Next.

The image file has been distributed to the DP. Click on Close. Wait for sometime while the DP updates the content, check the content status
and you must see a green circle which means that content is now available with DP.