Windows AIK + MDT

Currently moving along nicely with MDT / AIK / WDS setup here, but there seems to be alot along the way i don't understand...

Currently playing with the creation of answer files for an autounattend.xml file and i've gone through all the settings i understand or have explanations of in the walkthrough but does anyone have any links to things that explain what some of the more exotic settings or what more advanced features there are behind this?

at what stage would i want to use WDS to take an image of this machine? once i run sysprep and reboot it restarts windows and does a few things before rebooting again followed by more doing things then into the desktop which has been renewed to it's default self (which will bring me to my next question in a moment) so at which reboot am i stopping it from booting and taking the image?

Also is there any way to stop sysprep from changing things like desktop themes/wallpaper etc or is that wishful thinking? (i've customised alot in the answer file but there are some things an answer file just cant do :( :p)

I'm currently using WDS in legacy mode (RIS) via ghost but i want to switch over to using WDS instead, i think i changed things on the "boot" tab of WDS server properties originally, can anyone tell me the default setting for "x86 architechture" for default boot program? im sure i changed that to get ghost to work properly when it was originally setup many moons ago

And finally on the same second under the "client" tab there is "enable unattended installation" can i link to the previously configured answer file here to push the image out with the same settings again? if i remember correcly sysprep OOBE makes the OS ask for the licence key and other settings again, so im hoping to avoid that

I think that's everything, any answers much appreciated, sorry if its a bit long winded or vague but hopefully someone will be able to help me :)

Right well i'll answer what I can. I've been suing WDS for 3 years or so to deploy XP, last 12 months to deploy Vista and am now playing with deploying Win 7 with it.

For the taking the image it's the first reboot after sysprep runs, ie. sysprep shuts down machine. You then switch it back on and then boot to WDS and capture the image.

As for the default settings on the WDS tab mine is boot\x86\pxeboot.com

The client unattended install on the client tab is for getting the WDS to boot, pick an image and automatically partition the disk without the suer input. I've been playing with it today and got it to enter username, password, partition the hdd and then let me pick which image I want to install on it.

As for the themes bit I really don't have a clue as of yet, not played with them yet, but am going to set up a test network when i got more time and play about with 2008 R2 WDS and see if I can find anything more out as i'd like to customise my desktops a bit more during deployment.

Hope this has helped you.

Ste

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Originally Posted by Ste_Harve

As for the default settings on the WDS tab mine is boot\x86\pxeboot.com

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Thank you for the help, this is the first hurdle ive hit a snag with, i've been using a startrom.com file in the past which was a part of ghost or something originally and i had to use it for it to work properly......i cant find pxeboot.com, i don't seem to have that file anywhere! im sure i never deleted anything from the original setup though

Ah my some miracle pxeboot.com has reappeared, i now get the press F12 selection back, the next screen then has a windows 7 professional selection from boot image or the selection to use RIS, the RIS selection works fine and dandy but when i tried (for giggles) to install windows 7 that way it popped up with an error about WDS mode, any ideas?

Getting there!

Just to explain that further, when i select the top option it then does a loading screen where it mentions \boot\x86\boot.wim then the next screen is a windows 7 setup screen, it sits on that for a moment before poping up with "WDSclient: could not initialise wdsmode" or something along those lines, google hasnt helped me much here

How much memory has the machine your trying to load it on got? I've got some laptops with 256mb and they throw up a similar error. anything with 512mb should be fine though.

The machine has at least 1GB of ram, its a fairly new box

Do i have to link the boot image (boot.wim) to the image i put into the install images folder? if so how do i do that?

I boot via PXE, select "microsoft windows install (x86)" from the boot menu and it loads the boot.wim file, goes to a windows install window but crashs out with that error, i dont think its actually getting an image!