One of the limitations of SCCM is the use of Imagex. When you want to capture an image of a computer, this computer needs to be syspreped before capture, or the capture process will fail.

To do a capture of a reference image before sysprep, you normally would have to create a separate WinPE and run ImageX from that. This is also the case if you want to backup a system.

So once again MDT comes to the rescue… By using the ZTIBackup.wsf script, you not only get to run ImageX from a Task Sequence, you also utilize  the Append part of ImageX, which lets you add images to already existing images, only adding changes.. By taking advantage of that you can add a new reference image to already existing one, and the size will only increase with the changes.

Another benefit is the speed with witch the image is created. Because all the general Windows files are already captured in the initial image, only the changes will have to be captured..

So how is this done then–

1. You will have to integrate MDT into SCCM

2. (Create Toolkit Package)

3. Create the Task Sequence

 

image First you must ad a step to use the MDT toolkit package.
image In Toolkit package:  Browse and select your MDT toolkit package.
image Now add a step to Set Task Sequence Variable.

 
image In Task Sequence variable: type in the MDT variable ComputerBackupLocation

In Value: Type in the path of the share where you want to place the image.

image Add another Task Sequence variable, to assign a name to the image file

Variable: BackupFile

Value: The name of the image file, including the .wim extension

NOTE: If you leave out this variable, the image file name will will be set to ComputerName.

image Finally add a Run Command Line Step
image In the Command line: type in


cscript.exe
“%scriptroot\ZTIBackup.wsf”

image That’s it. The Task Sequence should now look like the on to the left.

Just advertise, and run it on the computer you want to make an image of.

remember it must be run from the Boot image.