Capturing and Deploying a System Image In Windows 7 Part 2: Building A Reference Installation

Ok, so in part 1 we built an answer file in order to be abee to perform an unattended installation of Windows 7. You can find my post on how to do that here.
In this section we will be using the answer file from part 1 to create a reference installation.
You will need to insert your Windows installation disk and the UFD with the autounattend.xml file on it into your reference PC. You may need to overwrite the boot order to get the PC to boot from the installation disk.
Windows Setup will automatically look in the root directory of any removable media for the file called autounattend.xml.
The setup should then automatically start without you having to enter any information.
Once the setup has finished you can check the file has worked correctly by opening internet explorer and making sure the home page you set in the answer file is the home page that opens up.
Once the setup is complete and the computer has booted up, you will see the System Preparation Tool window. You now need to generalise your system image. This means removing any information that is specific to the computer you are capturing the image of.

To do this you need to select Enter System OOBE from the first drop down menu, tick the generalise box and select Shutdown from the second drop down menu.

Sysprep will then start working.

When it is ready the PC will shut down.
The next step is creating the Windows PE Media.