I'm confused. For years now we have been using a simple image system for our servers. We setup a server, set it up with the apps, settings, profiles etc. we need, ran sysprep on it and Ghosted the image and transfered that to a DOS bootable DVD. Boot to it and the autoexec runs Ghost pointing to the GHO file. Write the GHO file to the drive, reboot and answer the questions that are not included in the sysprep.inf file. After that you were 99.9% setup ready to go. Then came Windows 2008.

I understand that sysprep is a mere shell of what it used to be and that the current method is WAIK. I am having trouble wrapping my head around all of this. I also understand I need to generate and answer file which is roughly the equivalent of the old sysprep.inf we used to use. What I don't know is how to create it. I choose NOT to use imageX as an image creator because it has no GUI and we have a long history and investment with Ghost. I'd like to stay away from PE2 because of size constraints of a DVD and the fact that we have our servers on a NON DHCP segment of the LAN and having to setup the network manually every time is a pain.

I have WAIK setup on my XP laptop and desktop. I run Windows System Image Manager (SIM) and I have a distribution share made up. When I try and open and catalog the setup.wim from the install CD it BSODs both machines and gives an error:
I have WAIK 1.1 the ISO file name is 6001.18000.080118-1840-kb3aikl_en.iso.

Is it still possible to sysprep and Ghost? What is the best tool for the answer file generation? Is it OK to have the WAIK on an XP PC?