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I'm using a windows deployment server capture boot image(running on win2k8server) to capture a laptop.

Is there anyway to capture the image straight to the WDS server without saving the image locally? The next button is grayed out until I give it a local path.

There's little space on the laptop, so it would be nice to be able to skip the local save.

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  • Try using MDT 2013 U2, it has a variety of options for saving captured images and can be WDS booted. Best of all, it is free! Jun 11, 2016 at 21:44

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You can capture it without storing it locally but you will need a UNC path on the network because you still have to store it somewhere. The work around isn't very intuitive either.

Once your PXE booted in the capture image and to the window that is asking where to store the new image, you check the upload image to WDS server option and connect the server to capture to (your WDS server). You have to do this before you can map a network drive because this action activates the NIC. If you open the command prompt before doing this it will show no network connection. Before hitting next, press [shift+F2] which will open a command prompt. Verify you have a network connection and IP by typing ipconfig. If you have a valid IP address, you can use the net use command to map a network drive (ex net use S: \\your-server\your-folder). Substitute the drive letter you want to use for your network drive and the path to your file server. Now you can browse to the network location to store your image.

I haven't done this in a while, but I'm pretty sure those steps are accurate.

Since this is so annoyingly inconvenient, I usually just use a USB hard drive.

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It's essentially a pre-staging area from memory. Writes it locally, then saves to a network location you specify. I don't think there is a way around the local path in the first instance.

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