Preventing OEM builds from Accidentally Performing Mini-Setup without the Task Sequence

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When you pre-load an OEM build on machines, they are usually set-up to perform Mini-setup as soon as they come up. Customers sometimes have difficulties ensuring that these machines boot to WinPE using boot media or PXE rather than simply performing Mini-setup using input from the user. Usually, if this happens, you have to re-sysprep the machine in order to run the task sequence correctly.

This is a little trick you can run at the end of the OEM pre-load task sequence or ask your vendor to perform in order to prevent the machine from accidentally booting to Mini-Setup. Please note, this trick uses the BCD store and thus only works on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

1. Ask your OEM to run the following command at the end of their build process.

bcdedit /set {default} path "This is an OEM Build. Please reboot using your boot media or network connection to continue."

2. Using your deploy task sequence, add the following command line action to your state restore phase.

bcdedit /set {default} path \Windows\System32\winload.exe

If your user accidentally tries to boot the machine, they will get the following message:

image

This post was contributed by Aly Shivji a consultant with Microsoft Services - U.S. East Region.

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