Windows 7 Windows 7 OEM Preinstallation Kit (opk)

[karlywarly]

Hi Everyone,

Im hoping someone can help me here.

Im currently a system builder and ive just got into using the windows 7 opk for installing customized versions of windows 7 on my customers pc's.

I would like to have a recovery system in place similar to the big brands such as Dell and Acer for example that use a restore disc that totally wipes the pc if windows fails etc and the customer can then use the restore disc to put the pc back into the state it was when the customer recieved it (factory state).

I know that the big companies put a lot of money into R&D on these kind of things and i have looked into Norton Ghost and the Acronis brand but they either need the software installed on the operating system to be able to do a back up of the system or if running from a boot menu you still need the software to restore the system image.

Im looking really for a simple solution for a person who isnt very technical where they can restore the pc from a DVD that can be booted before windows that willl restore the pc to its factory state.

I was hoping that i could use a recovery system after i had used the sysprep fuction and shut down where once i had backed up the hard drive to disc the pc would always restore to that state when needed.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

 

[BCC]

Same boat here, just launched my own OEM business about 2 days ago (date of my first sale), haha.

I have set up a system like you describe with Clonezilla, but it's hardly simple if you don't understand how linux land works. That said, I'd be happy to point you in the right direction.

Another possible solution is Norton Ghost. They used to offer an "OEM Kit" on a per license basis. I don't know if they do anymore, and it used to cost like $20 per license. A little pricey compared to free.

 

[karlywarly]

Thanks for the reply.

I thought Norton Ghost used to have this service.

I had a play around with CloneZilla last week and i couldn't get it working even with their tutorials so the idea of using that went in the bin.

Ive just had another browse at the oem docs i have for OPK and it seems i had overlooked something where i can use windows RE and have a recovery partition where the customer can restore the pc back to its factory state.

I will have a play around with this to see if its more benefitial first than using a backup dvd.

 

[BCC]

Hey man, whatever works. If you end up getting frustrated with that however, I wouldn't mind guiding you through clonezilla land. It's a pain admitedly but you can't beat the price.

I spoke with symantec recently and apparently they still sell what they call a "VAR Kit" for OEMS. No idea how customizable it is though, it's a ghost recovery partition/dvd setup apparently though.

Hope you figure it out one way or another.

 

[Veegertx]

Using Acronis my backup images are average 5.12GB completely updated to that date with just 7 so that wipes out dvd restore.
7 has a boot menu from F8 that will install an image

Where are you seeing this windows RE and have a recovery partition in the opk?

 

[karlywarly]

Using Acronis my backup images are average 5.12GB completely updated to that date with just 7 so that wipes out dvd restore.
7 has a boot menu from F8 that will install an image

Where are you seeing this windows RE and have a recovery partition in the opk?

I downloaded the windows OEM preinstallation kit training videos and transcripts from the microsoft partner network and in those it talks about creating a windows PE disc and using the imagex tool and other things to create a recovery partition and image unless im not reading it right?

With your backup images being an average 5.12GB in size i would have thought you could use a dual layer dvd as they have the storage capacity of 8.5GB?

 

[Veegertx]

I downloaded the windows OEM preinstallation kit training videos and transcripts from the microsoft partner network and in those it talks about creating a windows PE disc and using the imagex tool and other things to create a recovery partition and image unless im not reading it right?

With your backup images being an average 5.12GB in size i would have thought you could use a dual layer dvd as they have the storage capacity of 8.5GB?

Yes but are you adding dual layer to all the machines your building? I don't use or have a dual layer cause so much I burn that the dust would be enormous. I backup my images to 2nd drive then mirror that to external usb drive

I had previous but don't have Win 7 OPK Link Removed - Invalid URL
Haven't looked at how they were creating the restore partition which was available to me from F8 on Vista 64 because I have an oem. After upgrade(clean install) to 7 64 bit I accidentally deleted that 15 gb partition so can't look at it anymore

 

[Veegertx]

Found this in the winpe.chm from the Windows AIK for Windows 7 documentation (May 2010 update) and will look it over
Link Removed due to 404 Error