Technology Notebook

PC System Imaging

What should be cleaned up from snapshots before creating system images?
REGISTRY KEYS
From: http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/235555.htm
In the list of Registry values below, the specific data for each value may be different than what exists in any given package. However, the Registry key and the value name will be the same.
1. If the entire key is shown below without a value, delete the entire key from the .REG file.
Before: [HKEY\Path]
After:
2. If a Registry key is shown below with a specific value, remove only the value name and data. Do not remove the key.
Before: [HKEY\Path] "Valuename"=data
After: [HKEY\Path]
Common registry entries to remove:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Volatile Environment]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Description\Microsoft\Rpc\UuidTemporaryData]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Rpc]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Reliability]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList]
Note: There may be more than one Security Identifier (SID) under the ProfileList key in the Registry. Remove the keys for any SIDs, which will also remove any values under these keys.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell]
Note: There may be various keys and values under the Novell key. If they do not relate to the package in question, the entire Novell key should be removed. If any of the login or networking options are changed between snapshots, these types of settings will be picked up,

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\El90x1\Parameters\Tcpip]
Note: The line above is an example for a machine with the 3Com Fast EtherLink XL PCI 10/100Mb Adapter (3C905). "EL09x1" represents the network card's short name, specifically the "ServiceName" of the card. Replace "EL09x1" in the above line with the actual ServiceName value.
This value can be found in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards\1
"ServiceName"=EL90x1
The number indicated after NetworkCards depends on the number of NIC cards in the system. The example shows the ServiceName for the 3Com Fast EtherLink card.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NWCWorkstation]
Note: There may be various keys and values under the NWCWorkstation key. If they do not relate to the package in question, they should be removed.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\DHCP]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VCACHE]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Select]

FILES
from:http://www.wise.com/displayArticle.asp?articleno=1029&bhcp=1
The following files should not be included in your installation package. These files are flagged by Microsoft and should not be modified, replaced, or moved. They can and will produce unexpected and undesirable results:

Win16 .dll files:
USER.DLL, KERNEL.DLL, SHELL.DLL, TOOLHELP.DLL, VER.DLL, LZEXPAND.DLL, GDI.DLL, KEYBOARD.DLL, COMMDLG.DLL, WIN87EM.DLL, DDEML.DLL
Win32 .dll files:
COMCTL32.DLL, COMDLG32.DLL, USER32.DLL, KERNEL32.DLL, ADVAPI32.DLL, GDI32.DLL, DSKAPI32.DLL, ICM32.DLL, IMM32.DLL, LZ32.DLL, RICHED32.DLL, SHELL32.DLL, SAGE.DLL, VERSION.DLL, WINSPOOL.DRV, WINMM.DLL, URL.DLL, LINKINFO.DLL, SHLWAPI.DLL, SHDOCVW.DLL, SHFOLDER.DLL, WSOCK.DLL, WININET.DLL,
Also, you should not include the WININIT.INI file in your installation.

Additionally, the following files have been reported to cause problems:
ATL.DLL, COMCAT.DLL, CTL3D32.DLL exist in different versions for 9x platforms and NT/2000 platforms. When installing the wrong file different and varied problems may occur.

ATL.DLL and CTL3D32.DLL may prevent Windows from booting, and COMCAT.DLL will damage Visual Basic.

MSIMG32.DLL exists in different versions for 98/NT4 and ME/2000.