thin client imaging cross platform

[J-Red]

Hi All,

Hoping Iv'e put this in the right place and someone can help out or point me in the right direction.

I'm looking for some information on Thin Clients and Device Manager (HPDM), specificly on imaging and best practice on building and capturing images, cross platform would be advantageous.

I'm currently imaging using HPDM for my t5470, t5470e, t610 and t620 thin clients.

I have been looking for some docuemntation on HP's recomended setup for imaging. is it to make a "golden image" or can it be scripted through HPDM like Microsofts SCCM or WDT?

It would be fantastic if I could get this down to a single WES7 Image for most of my Thin Clients if possible.

Thanks in advance.
J

[Chen_HPDM]

Hi J,

The recommend way would be.

1. Create a golden image with all needed customization on one of your local thin client

2. Capture image with HPDM

3. Deploy it to the rest of the thinclients

You can also create a Template Sequence with script, addon, image together to make the task more like SCCM does.

If you are using HPWES7E image, you can deploy a single image to all of your  t5740e, t610 and t620 thin clients except t5740 due to the license issue.

HPDM provides plenty of whitepapers which you can easily get from help button on HPDM console. Kindly review them to get addtional information.

[J-Red]

Hi Chen,

Thanks for your post. This is currently what I am doing but I am unable to use the WES7 image on other models, only the one it was captured from.

I have had a look through the documentation as per link below but never have come accross any documentation on how imaging works or imaging best practice. should I be looking elsewherer?

Also, do I need to add extra drivers to the image for the other models? Is that why its not working?

Documentation: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/hpdm/Documentation/ 

Thanks

[Chen_HPDM]

Hi J,

Did you check the option of "Allow Cross-platform Imaging" before deploying the template? 

There should have detail explanation below this option.

For the document, I'm afraid that link include almost all the documents that HP Device Manager now have.

[J-Red]

Hi Chen,

In short, yes that option was checked.

Most recently I have tried using my t610 image to deploy to a t620 and I get a blue screen error 0x7B
I have tried it from t610 to t5740e and vice versa as well and it has never worked.

Cheers.

[Chen_HPDM]

is there any error information shows in task log? 

BTW, which DM version are you using? also what is Agent version on your thin client? I assum that you have updated them all to the latest one.

[J-Red]

DM version is 4.7 but the image contains 4.5 version of the agent. Not all agents have updated to the new version. we seem to have issues with HPDM across our WAN sites.

There is no error in the logs other than it eventually fails when it times out.
Im currently doing some more tests. will get back to you.

I may end up re-doing my SOE and trying to deploy it to all three types

[Chen_HPDM]

Ok, before deploying the image, please make sure the agent in target thinclient are all updated to the latest version.

[J-Red]

This is the process I used.

Imaged the t610 and t620 with the downloaded factory image from a USB stick.

Updated the agents on both machines.

Captured the image with and HPDM task from the t620

Deployed the image to the t610 making sure the cross platform option was selected.

Once the ThinClient is imaged it reboots and displays the windows logo for a split second and then blue screens with the following;

"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer" ...

STOP: 0x0000007B (0x80786A50, OxC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

I also tried going from t620 to t610 with the same result.

Do I need to prepare the image in any way first of does HPDM do that for me?

This is why I previously asked what the best practice steps are.

thanks again.

[Chen_HPDM]

Hi J,

Sorry to have you into this trouble. 

From HP Device Manager perspective, the option "Allow cross-platform imaging" is only used to bypass the platform check. HPDM will not do things like - identify target device, prepare necessary driver. So if the drivers in the captured image also works in the target device, then it could be deployed to both of the unit. 

Another thing you may want to know, for the factory image download from HP internet, it includes all the drivers by default (only the necessary driver will be kept once you have deployed it to a specific unit). You can just import the ibr file by clicking: Template-> import->imagefiles-> without PXE to create a template used to deploy image. This template should be able to work on all of the thin clients which image supports.

Note: please check the HPDM agent version in the factory image, make sure the default HPDM agent don't have a big gap with current HPDM console & server. It might be possible that the task report cannot be sent back after image was deployed. You will say two units with new image, but the task on HPDM console will keep "Processing" until timesout.