RIS - One build to rule them all? (sad Tolkien ref)

[ajbritton]

Just wondering what everyone does with their RIS builds.

 

Do you create lots of builds (one for each make/model of PC), or try to minimize the number of builds. Also, what do you include in the build rather than deploy.

 

I have never bothered trying to create 'the ultimate build' which could be installed on every type of PC for the following reasons...

 

1 - Space is not really an issue thanks to SIS grovelling

 

2 - Greater control over what is installed as part of the build (I usually just include whatever was bundled with the PC - roxio/nero, powerdvd etc)

 

3 - Less chance of driver clashes

 

4 - Easier to update software which is not part of the build

 

Downsides to the way I do it are at least...

 

1 - To make the same change to all the builds takes time and can introduce error.

 

2 - I base new builds on a generic baseline build which I don't update very often, so I never benefit from existing driver downloads/configuration/testing

 

3 - I have to deploy almost every bit of software with GP, including Media Player, Photo Story, Java Acrobat Reader etc.

 

Lunch over, back to work

[MkII]

Interesting to hear the pro's and con's [still ghosting myself as we're lucky enough to have only 3 different hardware specs at the moment].

 

Seems like an unnatended build could be better, plus apps done similarly at build time if not via GP. I've never done GP installs.

[tosca925]

I have quite a lot of RIS images. Did you know that nomore than 10 images will show up in the list when you use RIS, I found this out when i was updating several of our images. I always leave the old images on the RIS server until i have a good chance to make sure the new images are stable before i delete the old ones.

 

On my images i always include what ever basic software we need and are licensed for. I put things like, Office+S-Packs (not now though because WSUS does it all) Real Player, PDF Printer, Macromedia Suite, Acrobat, Sophos, (I'm sure there is more)

 

I also sometimes do a image for rooms that may contain specialist software only to be used in that room. Over the last 3 years we have had DFES laptops in for staff and i also do a image for each laptop.

 

It may sound a lot of work but its works out at saving me a load of time when i need to reimage corrupt machines.

 

I update the images at least once in a 12 month period.

[eejit]

We still use ghost. I don't see how RIS can compete with Ghost. Can't you just deploy the OS using RIS and then you have to deploy the remaining software using AD and MSIs or setup.exes with answer files. That's ok for some software but the crappy stuff you have to install on curriculum domains can rarely be deployed easily. I'd love to know how you get around those programs.

 

(P.S. in spite of my above post I AM a fan of RIS - we use it to build new servers and 'clean' XP machines - mostly for testing purposes)

[tosca925]

@eejit

 

We still use ghost. I don't see how RIS can compete with Ghost. Can't you just deploy the OS using RIS and then you have to deploy the remaining software using AD and MSIs

 

 

As you can tell from my post above, i use RIS in the same way as you are usin ghost. I take it you put all the software on you Image thaat is needed then Ghost away......?

 

Exactly as i do in RIS

[eejit]

As you can tell from my post above, i use RIS in the same way as you are usin ghost. I take it you put all the software on you Image thaat is needed then Ghost away......?

 

Exactly as i do in RIS

 

Aah, I forgot about the whole RIPREP thing; I've never used it, but is it like this? You build up the machine how you want it, run RIPREP on the client and that copies the files to your server? How does that work with different hardware?

 

I only use RIS to build the image from a slipstreamed OS CD. That way RIS 'installs' the OS as normal so it works on any hardware - therefore you only need one RIS build.

[Dos_Box]

Yup. Its exactly like that. RIS can save you oodles of cash once you've mastered it.

[tosca925]

Yup. Its exactly like that. RIS can save you oodles of cash once you've mastered it.

 

Bloody hell for a moment i was worried only i was doing it like that.

[ajbritton]

Can anyone tell me why the Poll appears to be closed, I thought I set it to 0 days which should be indefinite?

[RobC]

Funny, poll's still open for me.

[ajbritton]

Silly me! It must be because I've already voted!

[E1uSiV3]

My build is a single image, i have over a dozen different hardware types but they share a lot of common hardware (nearly every laptop uses intel UMA based gfx, all the monitors apart from my 1905FPs work with standard windows provided drivers etc) so a single image works fine here.

[Ric_]

I did find a little quirk with the Dell Optiplex GX280. The Celeron and P4 machines need different images and from all my tinkering I think it's down to the hyperthreading in the P4 processor.

 

I only have one app in my RIS install and that's the Citrix client so it bangs out machines in double-quick time (about 5mins!) and it sets them all up nicely on the domain - which is something I never got Ghost to do properly.

[OverWorked]

I'm a devotee of RIS, having given up on Ghost a long time ago.

 

I use a CD-based RIS image with SP2 slipstreamed into it. Then I have several .sif file attached to that image that load different drivers for different models of PC.

 

Whenever I buy some new PCs I copy the latest driver to the image and create a new .sif file.

 

All my apps are installed via GP. I use OnDemand's Wininstall LE to create the .msi files for the app installations. I've only come across two apps that I can't create a .msi for. (Winintall LE used to be free, but I think they charge for it now).

 

This works well for me. I re-install PCs every 12 months to clear out any malware that's been installed (how do you stop this? - subject of another future thread).

 

I've recently had to buy PXE compatible card for about 20 machines that didn't have them, but it's been well worth the expense.

[Dos_Box]

I did find a little quirk with the Dell Optiplex GX280. The Celeron and P4 machines need different images and from all my tinkering I think it's down to the hyperthreading in the P4 processor.

 

I only have one app in my RIS install and that's the Citrix client so it bangs out machines in double-quick time (about 5mins!) and it sets them all up nicely on the domain - which is something I never got Ghost to do properly.

 

See. It is nice after all. (once the faffing has been done).

[Ric_]

See. It is nice after all. (once the faffing has been done).

 

Except for those odd servers that all have the same GUID

[Dos_Box]

They are just wrong. I'm wondering with thise if that is a factory setting to be modified later.

[ajbritton]

@Ric: How does you RIS build manage to build a PC in 5 minutes? The best I've ever seen is about 20 to 25 minutes for a vanilla XP install. Are you referrring to the time taken to copy the files down to the PC prior to the setup actually taking place?

[ajbritton]

Those of you who use a single RIS build (I tend not to refer to them as images, as people tend to think of Ghost images), how do you deal with the ever increasing number of drivers you must need and the length of the OEMPNPDRIVERSPATH .SIF setting? Do you (like OverWorked) maintain a set of SIF files, 1 per build, or has the length of the line (I believe 4096 chars is max) never been an issue?

[GrumbleDook]

See. It is nice after all. (once the faffing has been done).

 

Except for those odd servers that all have the same GUID

 

Yeah ... we just came acoss this with a bunch of RM workstations.

 

How do others get around duplicate GUIDs?

[ajbritton]

See. It is nice after all. (once the faffing has been done).

 

Except for those odd servers that all have the same GUID

 

Yeah ... we just came acoss this with a bunch of RM workstations.

 

How do others get around duplicate GUIDs?

 

It's usually possible to obtain a utility from the manufacturer (done this with Viglen & Tulip, can't speak for RM). Basically there is a DMI setting which holds the UUID. There is obviously a standard for reading the UUID so I assume that there is also a standard way of setting it, but I know of no generic utility.

[ajbritton]

Another question for all you RISsters (not easy to say that!); Have you tried creating a build using Bashrat the sneaky's driver packs?

[Ric_]

@ajbritton: It only took 5 minutes from starting the build to finish (approx.). To be fair, these machines were dangling off the same HP gigabit switch as the RIS server and both machines had decent Broadcom gigabit NICs. My build is also only a baselined version of XP SP2 with the Citrix client so it aint exactly huge!

[ajbritton]

@Ric: 5 minutes still seems like an incredibly fast time. My builds take about 5 minutes to copy files down to the PC which then reboots and goes through the normal XP setup sequence. The XP setup takes a good 15 to 20 minutes. This is for a basic install from an XP SP2 slipstreamed build! Where d'you think I could be going wrong?

[Dos_Box]

@ajbritton. You are not using the scripts correctly. A properly configured .sif file will do all of the domain joining, and XP config for you, negating having to do it yourself.