Deploying a Windows 7 MUI machine based on a "Hybrid MUI image" within Configmgr 2012

This post and subsequent posts will be a step by step on how to build a Hybrid base Windows 7 ( yes , I know that everyone should rollout the new fancy Win 8 ) image in Configmgr 2012 and use that image as a base to deploy it in your company. I will be outlining not necessarily pointing out every click. Hopefully others will find this helpful. This assumes an understanding of Configmgr 2012 and uses what is referred to as a “Hybrid Image Strategy”.

In this post I’m going to outline how to handle multiple languages in a Windows 7 Enterprise deployment. Windows 7 Enterprise comes natively as a MultiLanguage User Interface type OS to which you can add on Language Packs. A language pack allows user to change the interface display language of Windows’ dialog boxes, menus and other text to the selected language. You can download/install them in a few different ways.

They take a long time to install and in our scenario it’s better to integrate them into your hybrid base .WIM image.

For this example, we’re going to configure and capture an OS image with the Dutch language pack installed. The reason why we use the Windows 7 base OS in English is :

&lt;component name=&quot;Microsoft-Windows-International-Core&quot; processorArchitecture=&quot;amd64&quot; publicKeyToken=&quot;31bf3856ad364e35&quot; <span class="kwrd">language</span>=&quot;neutral&quot; versionScope=&quot;nonSxS&quot; xmlns:wcm=&quot;http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/<span class="kwrd">State</span>&quot; xmlns:xsi=&quot;http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance&quot;&gt; 
            &lt;InputLocale&gt;%OSDInputLocale%&lt;/InputLocale&gt; 
            &lt;SystemLocale&gt;%OSDSystemLocale%&lt;/SystemLocale&gt; 
            &lt;UILanguage&gt;%OSDUILanguage%&lt;/UILanguage&gt;
            &lt;UILanguageFallback&gt;%OSDUILanguageFallback%&lt;/UILanguageFallback&gt; 
            &lt;UserLocale&gt;%OSDUserLocale%&lt;/UserLocale&gt; 
    &lt;/component&gt;

4) Create four (4) OSD collections and set your collection variables accordingly :

Define the following variables accordingly :

• Name the task sequence something appropriate like “Build & Capture Windows 7 SP1 X64 Hybrid Image”
• Select the x64 boot image
• Create a “Disk Format and Partition” step and choose properties on the Default (Primary) partition and check the “Quick Format” option
• Select the Operating System Package you created in step 1 and specify your unattend.xml file you created in step 2
• Set the local admin password to blank ( needed for sysprep to work )
• Join a Domain and use a domain join account for security reasons. An example of a how to create a domain join account could be found here : http://scug.be/sccm/2008/10/20/configmanager-osd-joining-machines-to-a-domain-and-its-security/
• Select the ConfigMgr 2012 client that is already available in Configmgr 2012
• Create a few Task sequence variables to identify the machine and do some branding. We will use that later to create our automatic  naming when we are capturing the image.
  • Set “OSDModel for VMware" when the following query is true “select * from Win32_ComputerSystem WHERE model like ‘%VMware%’ “
  • Set OSDARCHITECTURE=”X64"
  • Set OSDVERSION=”Windows 7"
  • Set OSDREVISION=”SP1

• Add your Language Pack(s)  –> see http://scug.be/sccm/2013/01/04/how-to-install-windows-7-language-packs-online-during-osd-task-sequence-or-in-your-hybrid-base-image/
• All the various Visual C++ Report Viewers (2005 SP1 , 2008 SP1, 2010 SP1 )
• Latest .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and 4.0 . If you really want , .NET 4.5 should work as well

• Windows Management Framework 3.0  = KB2506146 or KB2506143 ( Attention : There are few code defects but a toxic issue with using ConfigMgr 2012 RTM  – It is FIXED with ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 –> Only install if you have SP1 !! )
• All the various Visual C++ Runtime Libraries (2005 SP1 , 2008 SP1, 2010 SP1 )

• Internet explorer 9 ( or 10 when it releases for Windows 7 ) –> See http://scug.be/sccm/2012/12/28/configmgr-2012-rtmsp1-part-1-not-so-basic-applications-and-there-detection-methods/ 

• Optional : Office 2007 / 2010 / 2013 MUI (Remember the task sequence variable we have set at collection level !)

• All current Patches –> setup SU
• Set your image properties and Capture settings
• Select a location to save the image and make sure you include the full path including the .wim extension

Capture Without Office : (Remember the task sequence variable we have set at collection level !)

Capture With Office : (Remember the task sequence variable we have set at collection level !)

• Enter an account with rights to write to the share
• Finish up

5) Deploy your “Build and capture” task sequence to a VMware , XEN or Hyper-V VM : Look here how to do it for VMware : http://scug.be/sccm/2010/02/03/sccm-deploying-windows-7-on-a-vmware-esx-environment-howto/

Create your deployments (advertisements) accordingly :

Stay tuned for Part 2 , where we will deploy the Hybrid image ( that we just created)  for full deployment..

Hope it Helps

Kenny Buntinx