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.

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