Shiningintl Computer Technical support:Creating a Windows 7 Hard Disk Recovery Solution

Summary

The purpose of this whitepaper is to document a prescriptive method for Windows 7 hard disk Recovery Solution, one that reinstalls Windows 7 to its state at the time it left the factory.

Customers that wish to restore their systems only need to use the Advanced Recovery Method inside Windows 7 or press F8 while the system is booting and choose the Repair Your Computer option.

Intended Audience

This procedure is specifically targeted for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and applies only to all Windows 7 operating systems.

Step 1.0: Prepare your lab environment
In this step you will set up your lab environment, which includes installing the latest Windows 7 OPK tools onto your designated technician computer. You will use a USB hard drive to move files between computers.
Prerequisites
1. A machine dedicated as your technician computer
2. A machine dedicated as your reference computer
3. A machine dedicated as your master computer

Computer Minimum Specifications:
o Windows 7 operating system
o Processor: 1.5 GHZ or better
o Memory: 2 GB or better
o Video: DirectX 9.0 capable and WDDM 1.0 Driver support, 128 MB graphics memory
o HDD: at least 20 GB of free space
o DVD: Reader

4. Windows 7 OPK Product DVD
5. Windows 7 Product DVD
6. CD-ROM and/or DVD-ROM media
7. USB hard drive; the size must be at least 15 gigabytes (GB) or larger
8. USB flash drive (UFD); the size must be at least 2 gigabytes (GB) or larger
9. Microsoft Office 2010 OPK
10. (Optional) 3rd party drivers and applications
11. OEM logo for System Control Panel, 172 x 100 pixels, bitmap image
12. OEM logo for OOBE, a 32-bit portable network graphics (.png) file; 240×100 pixels
13. Custom background image for Windows Welcome.

Note: This image must be sized appropriately for the resolution of the computer screen and must not exceed 250 kilobytes (kb). For a custom image to be used, the directory %WINDOWS%\System32\OOBE\Info\Backgrounds must contain either an image that is specified as the default image, or an image that matches the screen resolution. If a default image is used, the default filename must be:
o backgroundDefault.jpg
The filenames for images to be used for specific screen resolutions are:
o background768x1280.jpg
o background768x1360.jpg
o background900x1440.jpg
o background960x1280.jpg
o background1024x768.jpg
o background1024x1280.jpg
o background1280x768.jpg
o background1280x960.jpg
o background1280x1024.jpg
o background1360x768.jpg
o background1440x900.jpg
o background1600x1200.jpg
o background1920x1200.jpg
14. Custom user tile which must be a bitmap (.bmp) file and the size should be 128 x128 pixels.

1.1: Install Windows OPK tools

In this step, you will install the Windows OPK tools onto your designated technician computer.

Important: You must uninstall any previous version of the Windows OPK.

1. From your running technician computer, insert the Windows 7 OPK.

Windows should automatically start the OPK setup program.

Note: If the OPK setup does not start, you can manually start the installation. From the Run command type D:\StartCD.exe where D: is your DVD-ROM drive.

By default, Setup creates the following directory structure:

C:\Program Files\Windows OPK\Docs\

C:\Program Files\Windows OPK\Recovery\

C:\Program Files\Windows OPK\Samples\

C:\Program Files\Windows OPK\SDKs\

C:\Program Files\Windows OPK\Tools\

1.2: Create a Distribution Share on the Technician Computer

The following procedures will create a distribution share used to store the custom installation files and the Windows Vista installation files. For ease of network access in a closed network environment, these procedures configure permissions for the share and security of the distribution folder to allow access to everyone. For your environment, configure the permissions for the share and security of the distributions share appropriately.

To create a distribution share, complete the following:

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Microsoft Windows OPK, and then click Windows System Image Manager.
2. In the Distribution Share pane of the Windows System Image Manager, right click on the Select a Distribution Share.
3. Click on Create Distribution Share.
4. Navigate to the folder you want to use as a distribution share or type in the path to the folder name you want to use as a distribution share.

Note: Throughout this document, we’ll reference C:\WinBits as the name of our distribution folder.

If the folder doesn’t exist, the folder will automatically be created.

1. Click Open.

1.3: Add Drivers to your Distribution Share (Optional)

In this step, you will add any out-of-box drivers needed for your custom installation. There are three types of driver installations supported through an answer file: In-box and out-of-box (.inf, .exe or .msi). In this step, you add an out-of-box (.inf) driver to your new distribution share under the \Out-of-box drivers.

To learn more about distribution shares, see the “Understanding Distribution Shares and Configuration Sets” topic in the OPK.chm.

1. Create an empty distribution share structure where you will add any custom out-of-box drivers. The name will be \Winbits.
2. Copy the out-of-box driver files (.inf) to

C:\Winbits\Out-of-Box Drivers\<Driver Folder>.

Note: Copy only .inf based drivers to this folder.

The <Driver Folder> designates the folder name of your driver. If you have multiple drivers to add to this directory, it is recommended that you create subdirectories for each driver. This ensures that there are no conflicts for drivers with the same file name.

1.4: Add Microsoft Office 2010 to your Distribution Share

In this step, you will add Microsoft Office 2010 to the distribution share. You will copy the Office 2010 bits to your configuration set.

To add Microsoft Office 2010 to your distribution share, complete the following steps:

1. On the technician computer, start Windows Explorer, and navigate to c:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders.

2. Using Windows Explorer, create the following folder structure:

c:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$1\Office 2010

1. Insert the Office 2010 OPK DVD into the DVD drive of your technician computer.

2. Open a command prompt with administrative privileges elevated.

3. Change directory to the location of the Office 2010 OPK DVD.

4. From the Office 2010 OPK root directory, execute copytoserver.bat <destination>.

Example:

copytoserver “c:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$1\Office 2010”

Note: This will take some time copying the Office 2010 OPK bits to your distribution share.

5. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the c:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$1\Office 2010\Office14 folder.

6. Delete the x64 folder.

Note: Microsoft recommends to preinstall the 32-bit version of Office 2010 for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 Operating Systems for ego system compatibility with 3^rd party add-ins. In addition, by removing the x64 folder, you will reduce the overall footprint thus reducing deployment time.

1.5: Add your Company Logo and customization files to your Distribution Share

In this step, you will add your company logo to the distribution share. You will also add a custom background image and a custom user tile. You can create these files yourself. The following procedures will use the sample files from the Microsoft Windows OPK. These files are located in the following paths once you have installed the Microsoft Windows OPK:

It’s recommended to use the sample files so you can see how they look.

You’ll need to provide an OEM logo for System Control Panel, 172 x 100 pixels, bitmap image. In our example, we’ll reference fabrikam.bmp for this logo.

To add your OEM logos and custom images to your distribution share, complete the following steps:

1. On the technician computer, start Windows Explorer, and navigate to the distribution share (in our example, this is c:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders).

2. Using Windows Explorer, create the following folder structure:

C:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$$\system32\oobe\info

3. Copy your OEM logo for OOBE to the

C:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$$\system32\oobe\info folder.

Note: In our example, the logo filename is fabrikam.png, a 32-bit portable network graphics (.png) file; 240×100 pixels.

4. Using Windows Explorer, create the following folder structure:

C:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$$\system32\oobe\info\ backgrounds

5. Copy the jpg file to the

C:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$$\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds folder.

6. Copy the bmp file to the

C:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$$\system32\oobe\info folder.

7. Copy your OEM logo for the System Control Panel to the

C:\WinBits\$OEM$ Folders\$$\system32\oobe\info folder.

Note: In our example, the logo filename is fabrikam.bmp, 172 x 100 pixels, bitmap image.

to be continued ….

Download the whole solution procedures guide