Creating a Client Image

The addition of RPSW and RSM to the Gold Drive images saves the user from having to install these products individually, but when you incorporate these Gold Drive images with your applications and then wish to distribute them to multiple terminals, some issues on terminal identification must be considered.

Problem

The NCR Retail Platform Software for Windows (RPSW) reads and stores terminal–based DMI information to the hard disk, either in the registry or in a file. The DMI space (firmware on the processor board) contains information, such as Terminal Serial number, class or model, and so forth. This information is critical because it may be the only way of identifying the terminal and its version.

This process works fine when each terminal’s hard drive is built up from scratch at that terminal. Now, with the use of drive duplication software, this process has become an issue because the duplicated terminals can get the DMI information of the source terminal where the image was created. Usually, a master disk image is created on a test terminal and then the software on that terminal is imaged on to all the other terminals. The problem occurs the first time the test terminal is rebooted after the RPSW is installed. During this reboot, the DMI information is read and written to disk (this data is not modified on subsequent reboots). When the image is sent to the other terminals, the DMI values on the disk do not match what is actually in DMI on that terminal.

Impact

When this problem occurs, NCR platform software, such as the Retail Systems Manager (RSM) or Command Center, displays incorrect DMI information for any terminals that have been loaded using the image. In addition, the affected terminals will have an unhealthy state when it detects that the board and disk drive DMI information do not match.

Note:  If you do not have RSM State–of–Health, check the event log for NCRHAL events, which indicate that the information does not match.

Action

To create a client image, follow these steps:

1.Install RPSW.

2.Install RPSW patches.

3.Configure any RSM Local Edition (LE) settings that are common across terminals, such as the system Custom Tags, peripheral settings, and so forth.

4.Run the NCRSysPrep utility, which is included with RPSW 2.1.1 or later versions.

The NCRSysPrep utility can be run for the NCR 7402, 7456, 7457, 7458, and newer terminal images. This utility clears out the data on the terminal’s hard drive so that the next time the terminal is loaded or rebooted, the data is read from the processor board on the new terminal. The customer can run the NCRSysPrep on each terminal to clear this error, but the best solution is to run NCRSysPrep on the terminal being imaged. If you reboot the terminal after NCRSysPrep is run and the Base Platform software in RPSW runs again, the data on the hard drive is filled in again and you must run NCRSysPrep again.

5.Run Microsoft SysPrep/fbreseal. Do not reboot after this step is done.

Note:  It is important that you run NCRSysPrep before you run the Microsoft sysprep/fbreseal.

6.Create the image. To capture or restore an image, refer to the NCR Partition Image User’s Guide (B005–0000–1641).