Getting the Casper Imaging Splash Screen Back when using AutoDMG

Chances are if you use AutoDMG to build your macOS images for deployment through Casper Imaging, you've found that for some reason the combination of these great tools the default Casper Imaging splash screen often doesn't appear. I'm sure someone has an answer that doesn't involve unicorns or magic wands or what-have-you; I just know it pretty much never loads when we do imaging at work. Casper Imaging will restart the machine and log into the Temp Adobe Installer account, sit on the desktop for a while as it completes imaging, then will restart again when finished. This causes some confusion with some members of my team, so I went to the MacAdmins Slack to find a solution.

A few folks recommended getting around this problem by creating a payload-free package that launches the jamfhelper. The command to launch the jamfHelper is pretty straightforward:



There are a few ways to make a payload-free package. You can use Packages.app to create a package that only contains a script (basically what's above), or you can use Rich Trouton's Payload-Free Package Creator app to build it for you with just a few clicks. Regardless of which path you choose, you should end up with an installer pkg that only contains the script above.



(Previews above came from the handy app Suspicious Package.)

To use it, upload it to your distribution point used by your JSS, and configure your imaging configuration to use it. Set it to a low priority number so that it will kick off before other after-reboot packages. And make sure it's set to Install on boot drive after imaging.

  


Now when you image your Macs using AutoDMG and Casper Imaging, you should get the Casper Imaging splash screen.



Tada! Splash screen. Thanks to the lovely folks in the MacAdmins Slack for the guidance.