Windows 8 and capturing it for SCCM 2012…

Last couple of weeks and today I tried to build and capture a Windows 8 Developer Edition and Windows 8 Consumer Preview with Configuration Manager 2012. But unfortunately the Sysprep phase will always fail with an error 4 (The System cannot open the file) and 0×80004004. I also got the same error when using the Capture Task Sequence Media. 

But since I still would like to deploy and manage a custom Windows 8 image with Configuration Manager 2012, I tried it the old fashion way. Manually Sysprep the machine and create a custom WIM image from WinPE with imagex. Let’s see how it goes;

First be sure that your Configuration Manager 2012 Client has no certificates assigned to itself, next you should browse to c:windowssystem32sysprep and start sysprep.exe. Choose “Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)”, enable the option Generalize and Shutdown.

Start Sysprep manually

The sysprep phase will start and clean up the system before sealing the Windows 8 operating system.

Sealing Windows 8

After the machine has been shutdown, start the machine into WinPE (with command line support), and press F8 when WinPE has been started.

When in the dos box connect to a server with imagex.exe available and start the following command line:

Imagex.exe /capture c: \cmps1capture$win8CP-x64.wim “Windows 8 Consumer Preview”

The command line to be executed

The Imagex version I used was from the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 beta2. You will see a lot of information about ignored extended attributes, but after that the capturing process will start.

Capturing the C: drive

After creating the Image it is ready to import in Configuration Manager 2012.

The new image imported in Configuration Manager 2012

I the next blog I will have a look at what is possible with the created image. I will also keep on investigating the error 4 issue…..

Update 1-3-2012: Configuration Manager MVP Kenny Buntinx pointed me at the fact that Windows 8 is not (yet) supported by Configuration Manager 2012. Good call from Kenny, let’s hope that RTM will support Windows 8.