Easiest and cheapest capture and deploy image software

[TonyMiles]

I normally use WDS to install and re-image my primary school PC's on our Server 2012. However I am tired of trying to find the right driver to actually boot a PC before installing an image.

 

We have just taken delivery of 64 HP Compaq Elite 8300 SFF and surprise surprise they wont PXE boot. I have tried lots of WINPE drivers for the Intel 82579LM card with no joy and as HP are unwilling to help I'am forced to look for an alternative.

 

So the question is what's the best software to use?

[ricki]

Try putting a network card in a machine or two that will work reimage hard drive a put it in a machine no problem

[LeMarchand]

I normally boot one and let it set up (though I'm guessing you could save time by going to Audit Mode?) and use something like DoubleDriver or DriverBackup to save the drivers. Then (if needed) it's easy to add them to the boot or image store.

 

Have found it doesn't always work for post install drivers if downgrading from (say) W10 to 8.1 .

[Arthur]

Download the Intel Ethernet Adapters Connections CD. This contains the latest drivers for almost all Intel Ethernet NICs (inc. your 82579LM).

 

Alternatively download the relevant driver packs from the HP or Dell websites...

 

HP: http://ftp.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/HP_Driverpack_Matrix_x64.html

HP (WinPE): http://ftp.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/HP_WinPE_DriverPack.html

Dell: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/2065.dell-command-deploy-driver-packs-for-enterprise-client-os-deployment

 

Note. Dell's WinPE driver packs can also be used with other makes of PCs.

 

Another option would be to use HPs SoftPaq Download Manager to download the drivers relevant to your model(s).

 

So the question is what's the best software to use?

MDT would be better than WDS on its own.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Arthur
Typo

[synaesthesia]

You'd have the issue with any 3rd party software as well as the big boys, you'll always need the driver in the end.

[cooka]

I use Server 2012 R2 for image deployment. But for the odd machine I use ImageX through a USB or SSD ( to usb converter) with the image you want to deploy saved on it.

[bwestlake]

Create a bootable USB?

 

CMD

 

diskpart

list disk

select disk %number%

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

format fs=ntfs quick

active

exit

 

then copy an extracted iso of windows onto the usb

go to the "Sources" Folder

replace install.wim with your image (Still calling it install.wim)

[Cache]

I think, but might be wrong, the 8300's might boot from a Windows 8.1/Server 2012 Boot Image without the need to add another driver if you've got one. Either that or I've merged it in and completely forgotten about doing so.

 

If I did import them, it'll be either from the Driver Pack Arthur linked too or it's the Intel Proset 17.1 version which I'm using in mine.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Cache

[sniffingmoose]

How about using Clonezilla. Its Free and simple. I dont use WDS myself. WDS looks to complicated for a simple bloke like me.

[NB9457]

Don't know if it's just luck, but MDT with all our hardware seems to just boot and image without adding drivers to the boot files!

 

Was the best thing ever deciding to use MDT, easy to set up and much easier to use than WDS on its own.

[Mustang]

By default the PE can't contain every driver so this will happen from time to time.

• Download the drivers for your network card and copy them to a usb stick
  
• Insert the usb stick and PXE boot the machine into the WDS boot image, when it errors press shift+f10 to open the command prompt
  
• At the command prompt run ipconfig to verify that you don't have an ip address.
  
• now type "drvload.exe d:\pathto\driver.inf" it should complete without errors
  
• now type ipconfig and verify you now have an ip address. If you still don't have an ip address repeat with different drivers.
  
• make a note of the driver that worked, you will need to add this to your WDS boot image. you can google how to do this part as i can't remember, its been a few years.
  

[Decimas6]

Don't know if it's just luck, but MDT with all our hardware seems to just boot and image without adding drivers to the boot files!

 

Was the best thing ever deciding to use MDT, easy to set up and much easier to use than WDS on its own.

 

Same, only being a technician for a year now and never had a problem Imaging any of our machines using MDT, getting them to actually PXE boot though...

[GreyFox]

Not had a lot of experience with MDT, but I've used FOG (Free Open-source Ghost) for years. Setup is pretty easy, but I have experienced issues with some PCs not PXE booting - HP 500B MT machines actually being the ones causing the most issues. I found popping in an Intel card was the only way around this.

Once you've got your image, Sysprep it (or Mysysprep2), capture and deploy. Lots of documentation on it.

[Geoff]

If you want to be super lazy, it's possible to use ipxe to boot the machine. This has the advantage of booting off a linux kernel that knows about all any network card hardware you choose to expose it to. Once the kernel is running it'll hand over to PXE boot and let you bootstrap as normal. It used to be used for machines that had no native PXE support, but it'll work for this too. Windows ends up thinking it's booting off DOS and is talking to an NDIS networking stack if I recall.

 

You can grab a prebuilt bootable usb/cd from their site.

 

iPXE - open source boot firmware [start]

 

For what you want to do, you don't need to build your own disc with customisations.

[mikeyd101]

I ran into the same issue with MDT & WDS, running lots of different machines so always having to find and update drivers. I moved to FOG which has some really nice functions and free. I also used clonezilla alot due to running on a 100mb network, which meant quicker to take HDD out and clone locally than deploy over network.

 

https://fogproject.org/

 

Also been through the PXE boot issues, most of mine were due to IP Helpers not set on switches. I also went through a time where certain Architectures weren't detected correctly, but solved that by changing over to wdsnbp.com boot loader.

 

I've changed job and were using WDS, but we have alot less different hardware so driver management isn't as bigger issue.

[Geoff]

If you are finding drivers a pita and you are running Windows 10 then there's a powershell command you can run to export the drivers in an MDT friendly format.

 

Export-WindowsDriver -Destination “C:\Drivers\$((Get-WmiObject -Class win32_computersystem).Model)” -Online

 

So the proceedure is:

 

• Build Win10 machine on new hardware (just vanilla iso is fine)
  
• connect to internet and update drivers via Windows update or whatever other method you feel like.
  
• export drivers via powershell
  
• copy to mdt server and import.