[wds] confused about the use of WDS

[denmyos]

I'm a little confused about the use of WDS.

 

At the moment I'm booting thru a USB (pxeboot is not working on the network)

And since Im having TS in MDT to handle my deployment, what do I need the WDS for.?

 

And even if the pxeboot was working, why would I mount a image in WDS->install Images.. since im still having a TS running in the MDT which lets me choose which image to deploy, late on during the boot/deployment.

 

And why is the image in WDS->install image twice as big as the original capture.?

I'm assuming thats it's because it loads drivers etc into the WDS image.?

[tmcd35]

WDS is the backbone technology that makes everything else work. MDT is, in essence, little more than a bunch of scripts. The scripts tell the clients and WDS what needs to happen when, it's still WDS doing all the hard work in the background. Same goes for Config Manager which is built on top of WDS+MDT.

[themightymrp]

A correctly installed WDS server will be able to handle the PXE booting, therefore making that side work for you and negating the use of the USB's.

 

The WDS Install images folder is made pretty much redundant if you are using MDT as well. It would be more of an alternative way of doing the deploys. Rather than using MDT, you would create your master copy of a fully installed machine and then sysprep and capture it as a .WIM file. This you would import to the Install Images folder. Boot your clients and pick this image to deploy (there's a few more steps but that's the essence of it).

 

I have the default Windows 7 WIM file in my Install Images folder because I 'think' you need something in there? Don't quote me.

 

You add the Boot.wim file from the Windows install DVD to the boot images folder - from here you can create additional boot images such as "Capture" or "Discovery" images. Whatever boot images are listed are the options you see when you press F12 on a PXE boot.

 

As for the file size question.... I really don't know!! I've wondered about it myself

 

My setup has 4 basic boot image options. 32bit deploy, 64bit deploy, 32bit capture and 64bit capture. The deploy options load up to the WinPE environment where I then use the MDT scripts.

 

Hope that helps in some way

[sted]

I have the default Windows 7 WIM file in my Install Images folder because I 'think' you need something in there? Don't quote me.

 

you dont most of my setups don't have it there a few do as its slightly quicker to just roll out a win7 image to a vm from wds than via mdt and tbh it usually uses the image that mdt uses so its still an updated image with office etc in it it just wont install drivers which on a vm is fine

[themightymrp]

Fair enough. I actually have a task sequence in my MDT to launch the Symantec Ghost client which is what I use for mass rollouts. I'm just more familiar with it than sorting out WDS (which for me is running on a Server 2008 machine.. not R2)