WDS - Tips for beginners

[djones]

I'm no expert on this but AFAIK in WDS config there is a section that says something about "...if this server is a DHCP server then check these boxes..." you obviously wouldn't need this part. The DHCP scope on the curric server would need to have the pxe boot options set to the WDS server and IIRC this needs to be a valid hostname not IP address.

Edit: This thread may help: WDS on separate server to DHCP - MSFN Forums

This may not be a lot of help as I'm not in front of our WDS server at the moment and I sure someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly to clarify!

Dave.

[tatty14]

ok...so ive set everything up...and i can start to setup a capture of an image and i get an error....

capturing image
the parameter is incorrect

driving me mad...anyone had this or got any ideas to help me out? looked on hte net...nothing out there for help.

[Teth]

Ok moved from RIS to WDS this summer I had to make new images for all suites anyway so thought I'd run WDS in naitve mode and learn wim images while I was at it.

Its all gone well partitioning works far better in windows PE than in XP setup etc. However I've hit a wall with machine nameing.

With RIS when installing a machine that was already in AD it would name the machine the same as the existing record in AD as long as the GUID matched and it would stay in the correct OU. If it couldn't find a matching GUID it would generate a new name based on the auto generate rule and place it in a default OU set on the same page of server properties.

I set up the equivalent Properties Page in WDS but whether the PC is known or unknown my images are copying over and extracting running mini setup for XP and just popping up and asking for a machine name every time. I'm guessing either WDS needs be told to write the machine name from AD into the image when it transferes it to the PC or soemthing needs added to the sysprep.inf to make it ask AD for its name but I can't find any mention of it no matter what I search for on Google. All the guides etc just gloss over this as if it wasn't an issue for them. I can't be the only person that doesn't want to have to type ina machine name every time.

My Vista suite works fine of course. Its just the XP ones.

[SYNACK]

Originally Posted by Teth

Ok moved from RIS to WDS this summer I had to make new images for all suites anyway so thought I'd run WDS in naitve mode and learn wim images while I was at it.

Its all gone well partitioning works far better in windows PE than in XP setup etc. However I've hit a wall with machine nameing.

This could help if you have not already tried it:
Automating the Domain Join

The domain join process uses the image unattend file to pass data that is collected within Windows PE to the subsequent phases of Setup.exe. If an image is associated with an image unattend file, the domain join and computer name settings will be made directly to this file. However, for this to occur, you must properly the file correctly (see the Sample Unattend Files). Specifically, this means as follows:

• For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 images. The image unattend file in the $OEM$ structure (Sysprep.inf) must have the setting DoOldStyleDomainJoin=Yes, and it must have (at a minimum) the [Networking] and [UserData] sections, even if they are empty.

These suggest the same kind of thing:
https://forums.microsoft.com/technet...&tf=0&pageid=1
http://forums.technet.microsoft.com/...-7b40edde51a8/

[ChrisH]

I am going to be tackling this soon. Thanks for the info everyone it should make it a lot less painful for me .
I never liked RIPREP images as they seemed easy to mess up I just use the normal risetup with lots of driver packs and install on first auto logon for awkward stuff as well as lots of custom scripts. I will be hopefully looking forward to a speed increase on deployment now though.

[Teth]

Another couple of days have been spent rebuilding machines and while I've got my image itself perfected the deployment of it is still not right my machines are still not being named correctly and rejoining the domain.

Everything I have read on edugeekers blogs, wiki's and technet makes sense and as far as I can tell I'm following it but I still continually get %MACHINE% in the computer name box instead of either its original machine name from AD or if its an unknown machine the machine name generated by the mask in the WDS properties.

My understanding of this is as follows now.

1) Set up WDS for capture and deploy (Done)

2) Make an ideal XP image with driver repository on C: and sysprep it with minisetup enabled and Re-Seal.

3) Boot from PXE and capture the image to the server.

4) Specify a WDSClientUnattend.xml for the server which will pick the deply image and select the .WIM in the correct image group after partitioning the drive. The partitioning is working and the right image .wim is being pulled down so I'm pretty sure I'm right to here.

5) Place an sysprep.inf in the correct folder to automate the installation of the image. It gets placed on the boot drive once the .wim is extracted ready to control mini setup.

It is placed in \\wdsserver\REMINST\Images\Imagegroup\imagefilenam e\$OEM$\$1\sysprep

6) Boot PC from PXE and it should arrive at a ctrl+alt+del to log on screen after 20mins ish connected to the domain and ready to go.

7)tear out hair because it doesn't.

I will post my WDSClientUnattend.xml and my sysprep.inf bellow if anyone can point out anything I'd be very greatful because I'm stumped. WDS just doesn't seem to be replacing the %MACHINE% and %MACHINEDOMAIN% variables and I can't figure out why. Wether a machine is correctly prestaged or not its still %MACHINE% in the computer name box when it runs mini setup. I would expect either "RIS-PC##" or "ICT1-PC07". If I change %MACHINE% in the syprep.inf to * it correctly generates a random name based on our organisation.

WDSClientUnattend.xml

<?xml version="1.0" ?> 
   <unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
     <settings pass="windowsPE">
       <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" processorArchitecture="x86">
        <WindowsDeploymentServices>
          <Login>
            <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI> 
            <Credentials>
              <Username>account</Username> 
              <Domain>domain</Domain>
              <Password>password</Password> 
            </Credentials>
          </Login>
          <ImageSelection>
            <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI> 
            <InstallImage> 
              <ImageName>Dell 170L 3</ImageName> 
              <ImageGroup>ICTSuites</ImageGroup> 
              <Filename>dell170l3.wim</Filename> 
            </InstallImage>
            <InstallTo>
              <DiskID>0</DiskID> 
              <PartitionID>1</PartitionID> 
            </InstallTo>
          </ImageSelection>
        </WindowsDeploymentServices>
        <DiskConfiguration>
          <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
          <Disk>
            <DiskID>0</DiskID>
            <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk>
            <CreatePartitions>
                <CreatePartition>
<!-- Create Partition, 30GB C -->
                    <Order>1</Order>
                    <Type>Primary</Type>
                    <Size>30000</Size>
                </CreatePartition>
<!-- Create Partition, Rest of Drive -->
                <CreatePartition>
                    <Order>2</Order>
                    <Type>Extended</Type>
                    <Extend>true</Extend>
                </CreatePartition>
<!-- Create logical Partition within Extended Partition D -->
                <CreatePartition>
                    <Order>3</Order>
                    <Type>Logical</Type>
                    <Extend>true</Extend>
                </CreatePartition>
            </CreatePartitions>
          <ModifyPartitions>
            <ModifyPartition>
                <Order>1</Order>
                    <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                    <Format>NTFS</Format>
                    <Label>WinXP</Label>
                    <Letter>C</Letter>
                    <Active>true</Active>
            </ModifyPartition>
            <ModifyPartition>
                <Order>2</Order>
                    <PartitionID>2</PartitionID>
                    <Letter>U</Letter>
                    <Label>Userdat</Label>
                    <Format>NTFS</Format>
            </ModifyPartition>
          </ModifyPartitions>
          </Disk>
        </DiskConfiguration>
      </component>
    </settings>
  </unattend>

sysrep.inf edited to remove the component and drivers blocks cos they are huge and Unrelated.

[Unattended]
    unattendedMode=FullUnattended
    OemSkipEula=Yes
    InstallFilesPath=C:\
    ConfirmHardware=No
    DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore
    pempreinstall=yes
    updateInstalledDrivers=Yes

[GuiUnattended]
    OEMSkipRegional=1
    TimeZone=85
    OemSkipWelcome=1

[UserData]
    ProductKey=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
    FullName=" "
    OrgName="ORG"
    ComputerName=%MACHINE%

[Display]
    BitsPerPel=32
    Xresolution=1280
    YResolution=1024
    Vrefresh=60

[TapiLocation]
    CountryCode=44
    Dialing=Tone
    AreaCode=028

[RegionalSettings]
    LanguageGroup=1
    SystemLocale=00000809
    UserLocale=00000809
    InputLocale=0809:00000809

[SetupMgr]
    DistFolder=C:\sysprep\i386
    DistShare=windist

[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents=Yes
JoinDomain=%MACHINEDOMAIN%
DoOldStyleDomainJoin=Yes

[sysprepcleanup]

[powdarrmonkey]

I'm just in the middle of perfecting my deployments with exactly this method. The variable for the name is %MACHINENAME%, not %MACHINE%.

[Gatt]

It should be %MACHINENAME% not %MACHINE%

[Gatt]

ooh beaten to it by the monkey

[powdarrmonkey]

Remember ground dweller, the monkey can climb.

[Gatt]

ground dweller can also bring down that which goes up..

[Teth]

Haha

Gotta laugh or you'd cry. That does indeed do the trick.

[Gatt]

Finally got WDS working with Multicasting and Unattended Vista installations

Not tried it on a full classroom yet but will be today or tomorrow hopefully - usually do my imaging over night so as there is no impact on the network..
Have heard that multicasting is actually slower though?

but If i need to image 3 ICT Suites at once then i think Multicasting is prob the way to go here (93 PCs)

[Gatt]

Well multicasting is working a treat.... 30 PCs imaged in an hour!!

better than a day per room!!

[petroz]

Just finished a massive deployment of WindowsXP to Mac's and PC's, via WDS and WinPE for the PC's and ntfsclone and Jamf for the Mac's. WDS works alright for XP, but I ran into a few quirks that might save you all a buttload of time:: using imagex /capture to a mapped drive never produced a valid image.. external hdd is faster and more reliable, using /compress fast & /compress maximum in imagex is a crap shoot and rarely captures a valid image... try /compress none, if you need to /append... dont do it to any image installed in WDS, watch out for those pesky "hidden" partitions as WDS does not see them, IP helpers are your friend when deploying across site2site VPN's, make sure your boot.wim does not have a pid.txt in it, dont let WDS do auto-binding.. try netdom, imagex /mountrw is a helpfull little option when you have to make changes... be sure to /unmount /commit if you plan to save your changes, and last but not least pray to whatever you believe in for patience......

I am working on some step by steps for WDS and XP and will post links When I am done.