Systems Management

Using MDT 2010, I have added several "Run Command Line" tasks to the Preinstall TS section. These tasks do the following:

1. Use Reg.exe to load the SOFTWARE hive from the machine's OS drive - reg.exe load "HLKLM\LOCALSOFTWARE" "D:\Windows\system32\config\SOFTWARE"
2. Use Reg.exe to export a Key to a file on the WinPE RAMDisk (X:) - reg.exe export "HKLM\LOCALSOFTWARE\..." x:\Regfile.txt
3. Run an AutoIt script (from %SCRIPTROOT%) to edit the Reg Key Path from "HKLM\LOCALSOFTWARE\..." to "HKLM\SOFTWARE\..." so it will import correctly and save it to the WinPE RAMDisk (X:) as Regfile2.txt

After the OS install, in the Postinstall TS section and before the machine boots to Windows 7, I run another AutoIt script (again from %SCRIPTROOT%) that copies the Regfile2.txt to C:\MININT as Regfile2.reg.

Finally, just before the Install Applications TS section, I run a final AutoIt script (from %SCRIPTROOT%), that imports c:\MININT\Regfile2.reg into the registry.

This process seemed to work, initially, on a VM.  So I tried on an actual machine.  At that point, the OS Install portion began to fail during the process of expanding Windows stating "Windows cannot install required files. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation."  The error only occurs during a deployment where there was a pre-existing OS (i.e. - if I wipe the disk first so that there is no registry data to capture, the process has no problem).  Also, if I disable all of these related tasks, the deployment has no issue.

The files on X: are getting created and edited properly and initially the file copy to c:\MININT looked to be happening correctly but now it doesn't get that far. I have tried moving the tasks around a bit, but nothing has worked.