set up gold image to be deployed

Thanks for reaching out.

Lots of development effort went into making this process easier for customers to use, resulting in the --goldimage switch, as you've found. The older content remains for reference purposes should customers have a need for it. 

I'm glad this helped you!

so im guessing, before i sysprep the golden image, i run this and the next time i deploy the image to a new windows it wont be a clone?

Yes that's correct.

When you power on the device, if the hostname remains the same as the original that the --goldimage command was run on, the device will recognize that it's the Gold Image system, and a delay will be added to the startup of services.

I suggest performing the device rename operation within this timeout period to avoid any issues. 

once i have installed sophos endpoint with the --goldimage option

do i have to wait 2 minutes before i sysprep windows and capture the image?

No, the switch tells the installer that the machine is a gold image. It then records the hostname. The next time it boots, if the goldimage flag is set, it checks the name registered. If it matches, then it waits 2 min or so to see if a name change happens. If no name change happens in the time, then it considers itself a goldimage still and doesn't reregister. if the hostname changes, it knows its a real deploy and registers itself with Central under the new name.

thanks Richard, what about after i sysprep/capture this windows and once captured, i then delete the original GI as i have already got it on my server to deplot to laods, will this affect anything?

No, these are all registry values. Which should be preserved in your imaging.