superatticman Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 Hi all We have traditionally used 'clonezilla' for our imaging needs. This has involved creating a machine specific disk image with OS, major Applications and software tweaks. We then sysprep the PC, shut down and capture the image. Deployment is manual via booting the client pcs up with clonezilla CDRom, connecting to the share and then downloading the image onto the pc. Its a bit labour intensive but has been a reliable and fast solution. However we've now taken on Windows 8 tablets of which cannot be imaged using the above process. 'Apparently' they simply cannot be booted via CDROM or USB into a clonezilla environment. What process would you advise that we change to? Ideally we want to be able to image the OS and apps in one go like we currently do. We do use APPV for a number of apps but still locally install the likes of Office, Cs6 etc. Regards
cscc Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 WDS/MDT is your best bet. The following link is a good place to start if your new to it all: PeteNetLive - 0000737 - Windows Server 2012 - Windows Deployment Services - Deploying Windows 8 - Part 2: Prepare Windows 8, and Capture to WDS
Michael Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 It's a very good question! I would say PXE boot, but no doubt these tablets probably don't have a Ethernet port either. Not sure if it's even possible to do a wireless PXE boot, or more to the point, why would you want to? Pulling a 15GB file over wireless is going to be painful. Can you boot from a specially formatted USB flash drive? What options are offered in the BIOS?
SYNACK Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 It's a very good question! I would say PXE boot, but no doubt these tablets probably don't have a Ethernet port either. Not sure if it's even possible to do a wireless PXE boot, or more to the point, why would you want to? Pulling a 15GB file over wireless is going to be painful. Can you boot from a specially formatted USB flash drive? What options are offered in the BIOS? Use MDT then you can make a USB boot key that either hooks up to the network to download and apply the image or dumps all the necessary files on a bootable USB that will still boot under EFI.
FN-GM Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 It's a very good question! I would say PXE boot, but no doubt these tablets probably don't have a Ethernet port either. Not sure if it's even possible to do a wireless PXE boot, or more to the point, why would you want to? Pulling a 15GB file over wireless is going to be painful. Can you boot from a specially formatted USB flash drive? What options are offered in the BIOS? We PXE boot the Dell Venue tablets using the optional docking station, works great!
cromertech Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 There is a technet forum post on this very subject How do I deploy to a wireless tablet device? I think the long and short of it is a usb to ethernet adapter or offline usb image
jonnykewell1 Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 I used clonezilla in my previous school and yeah it did a job but it's got nothing on MDT or fog. We use fog here and in a number of our primary schools and it works really well. If I were you I would use fog and just get a USB to ethernet adapter and use the PXE boot. I have it running off an UBUNTU VM with a couple of gigs of ram. It builds a nice little inventory system which binds to the computers MAC address making it real easy to deploy/capture an image and will rename the machine after the cloning process completes.
cscc Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 I used clonezilla in my previous school and yeah it did a job but it's got nothing on MDT or fog. We use fog here and in a number of our primary schools and it works really well. If I were you I would use fog and just get a USB to ethernet adapter and use the PXE boot. I have it running off an UBUNTU VM with a couple of gigs of ram. It builds a nice little inventory system which binds to the computers MAC address making it real easy to deploy/capture an image and will rename the machine after the cloning process completes. @jonnykewell1 - Have you got FOG working with Windows 8? Not tried here but heard it was a pain due to UEFI and the multiple partitions W8 creates.
dhicks Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 What process would you advise that we change to? We used to use FOG, but it doesn't handle different sized disks very well, so now we've moved to PXE booting the OS install image and having that do an unattended install. We have this working well with Windows 8.1 at the moment, I hope to add Debian and Server 2012 (for testing Ceph / Windows Storage Spaces) soon. We have all our software install via a script that runs after the install process is complete - ideally we would distribute all software via MSI files and GPOs, but we have assorted software that only comes with an executable installer.
sted Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 @jonnykewell1 - Have you got FOG working with Windows 8? Not tried here but heard it was a pain due to UEFI and the multiple partitions W8 creates. installing from anything to a uefi/secureboot pc is a pita be it network or usb
jonnykewell1 Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 hmm come to think about it no we don't have any windows 8 machines set up, but fog website says it's supported
PotNoodleTech Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 WDS and MDT = the awesome and the free - you'll be up and running in a day and I aint touched a thing on our build system for months, it just works!
free780 Posted March 31, 2014 Posted March 31, 2014 MDT. Though I would recommend away from thick images unless necessary.
sted Posted April 1, 2014 Posted April 1, 2014 MDT. Though I would recommend away from thick images unless necessary. i think the best solution is half and half install office and updates to an image and thats it everything else via script/gpo/task sequence at end
Norphy Posted April 1, 2014 Posted April 1, 2014 (edited) MDT. Though I would recommend away from thick images unless necessary. I prefer hybrids. Every PC in the college gets a certain software loadout (Office, Adobe CC, Visual Studio, others). These are mostly large packages, it makes no sense to deploy them after the OS is deployed if they're going everywhere. installing from anything to a uefi/secureboot pc is a pita be it network or usb Installing an OS to a secureboot enabled machine is easy enough to do if you're deploying from the correct environment. I use SCCM 2012 SP1 with a PXE enabled DP running on Windows 2012, no problems here so far. Edited April 1, 2014 by Norphy
sted Posted April 1, 2014 Posted April 1, 2014 I prefer hybrids. Every PC in the college gets a certain software loadout (Office, Adobe CC, Visual Studio, others). These are mostly large packages, it makes no sense to deploy them after the OS is deployed if they're going everywhere. Installing an OS to a secureboot enabled machine is easy enough to do if you're deploying from the correct environment. I use SCCM 2012 SP1 with a PXE enabled DP running on Windows 2012, no problems here so far. generally ive got mdt2012 and server 08r2. I spent ages once trying to get it to work i noe jusy turn it all off one day will reevaluate
Norphy Posted April 1, 2014 Posted April 1, 2014 That's the problem then. You need WDS running on Windows Server 2012 or higher for PXE and secureboot to work. 2008 R2 doesn't cut it as I found out when I tried to get it working.
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