Thin Imaging and installing the BigFix agent

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If anyone can add to this, please do so.

I’d like to document how to take a never booted OS image and have it applied to a system and have the BigFix agent installed all in one go, the idea being that BigFix would be the primary mechanism for software installation, configuration, and in some cases, drivers. This would be for Mac, Windows, and potentially linux.

I’d like to document the minimum effort to do this with the minimum amount of tools required.

Requirements:

  • Network
  • drivers (if applicable)
  • assume DHCP for simplicity at first
  • An Admin User Account
  • need a way to login to troubleshoot
  • BES Client
  • masthead / actionsite file
  • potentially a clientsettings.cfg or similar.
  • Client installer
  • a way to have the client be installed after the OS is installed
  • Create installation media

Windows

  • Windows ADK(AIK) or MDT
  • Network Drivers (not required in all cases)
  • Intel
  • Realtek
  • USB to Ethernet
  • ???
  • create bootable installation media
  • USB
  • ISO
    • oscdimg -m -h -u2 -udfver102 -bC:\temp\WADK_Win10\boot\etfsboot.com C:\temp\WADK_Win10 C:\temp\win10bigfix.iso
  • PXE

Mac

Linux

Related:

Universal:

Mac:

Win

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I was successfully able to install Windows 10 x64 in a HyperV Gen1 VM, including the BigFix client without any user interaction in about 20 minutes total. Software and configuration would be automatically applied at that point using a baseline. This was done with Windows ADK.

One thing I like about this, is that it is actually possible for the user to start using the system before all software is installed. Once Chrome and MS Office are installed, that is often sufficient for most of what a user would need to do in short order.

A Windows 10 installation ISO was downloaded from Microsoft. The install.wim inside the ISO was extracted using 7zip.

The install.wim file was fed into the Imaging and Configuration Designer

This is what was configured in Imaging and Configuration Designer:

Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 10.41.59 PM.png432×848 17.7 KB

Click here to see part of the raw customizations.xml file 
  <Settings xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:windows-provisioning">
    <Customizations>
      <Common>
        <Accounts>
          <Users>
            <User UserName="deploy" Name="deploy">
              <Password>Password123456</Password>
              <UserGroup>Administrators</UserGroup>
            </User>
          </Users>
        </Accounts>
        <Folders>
          <PublicDocuments>
            <PublicDocument Name="BigFix-Client" DevicePath=".BigFix\BigFix-Client.exe">C:\windows\temp\.bigfix\BigFix-Client.exe</PublicDocument>
            <PublicDocument Name="clientsettings" DevicePath=".BigFix\clientsettings.cfg">C:\windows\temp\.bigfix\clientsettings.cfg</PublicDocument>
            <PublicDocument Name="masthead" DevicePath=".BigFix\masthead.afxm">C:\windows\temp\.bigfix\masthead.afxm</PublicDocument>
          </PublicDocuments>
        </Folders>
        <OOBE>
          <Desktop>
            <HideOobe>True</HideOobe>
          </Desktop>
        </OOBE>
        <Shell>
          <AutoLogon>
            <Enabled>True</Enabled>
            <LogonCount>1</LogonCount>
            <Password>
              <PlainText>False</PlainText>
              <Value>Password123456</Value>
            </Password>
            <Username>deploy</Username>
          </AutoLogon>
          <FirstLogonCommands>
            <SynchronousCommand Name="InstallBigFix">
              <CommandLine>C:\Users\Public\Documents\.BigFix\BigFix-Client.exe /s /v/qn</CommandLine>
              <Description>Install the BigFix Client</Description>
              <RequiresUserInput>False</RequiresUserInput>
            </SynchronousCommand>
          </FirstLogonCommands>
        </Shell>
      </Common>
    </Customizations>
  </Settings>

This is the command used to turn the resulting files into an ISO:

oscdimg -m -h -u2 -udfver102 -bC:\temp\WADK_Win10\boot\etfsboot.com C:\temp\WADK_Win10 C:\temp\win10bigfix.iso

The etfsboot.com file wasn’t present in the output from the Windows ADK Imaging and Configuration Designer so it was copied from the original install.wim file using 7zip.

TODO: adjust the oscdimg command to work with EFI boot.

I had to copy the following files from the MS ISO to the folder created by ICD:

  • cdboot.efi
  • cdboot_noprompt.efi
  • efisys.bin
  • efisys_noprompt.bin
oscdimg -m -h -u2 -udfver102 -bootdata:2#p0,e,bC:\temp\WAIK_Win10\boot\etfsboot.com#pEF,e,bC:\temp\WAIK_Win10\efi\Microsoft\Boot\efisys_noprompt.bin C:\temp\WAIK_Win10 C:\temp\win10bigfix-_BothLegacyEFI_noprompt.iso

One of the main benefits of using the Windows ADK is all of these steps can be automated on the command line.

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This might be possible using ProvisioningCommands instead, but it works better using a BAT file called with something like cmd /C install.bat