[wds] Tips for beginners

[GrumbleDook]

Starting of a new thread for those who are either just deploying and wanting to look at WDS or those moving from RIS.

 

I'll start off with this article from the Technet Magizine.Windows Vista : 10 things you need to know about deploying Windows Vista

[Gatt]

Excellent GD - will have a read of that later

[GrumbleDook]

To go along with this are the Vista Deployment Step by Step Guide (as recommended by Steven Audis at Microsoft)

and not forgetting the general Desktop Deployment Center ...

 

It is amazing what you find when you start looking ...

 

This is principally Vista based ... if there are those out there that have working WDS setups for deploying existing XP images then please add comments into here (even if you have commented in the RIS sticky ... please)

[Dos_Box]

After my SP2 shock today I've got WDS up and running with RIS working in legacy mode off the Windows PE environment. I shall have more info tomorrow after I get to grips with the scripting.

I am rather distracted though. My Mac Book Pro arrived today.

[GrumbleDook]

Stop trying to throw the thread off topic ...

 

So legacy mode is an importnat thing to remember ... I'll look for instructions based on that too then.

[contink]

Just a thought but most of us are not using Vista at present and I'll bet the legacy issue is a killer for a number of people so if anyone can write a full on wiki that covers the SP2 upgrade so that we can at least recover the old RIS installs for XP that'd be one sorely appreciated wiki...

 

The idea of not paying for your beer at a meet spring to mind

[GrumbleDook]

So you would be looking for a set of instructions similar to this one then?

[contink]

So you would be looking for a set of instructions similar to this one then?

That'd be the one... I just wish these sodding marketing muppets at M$ would stop shoving their new OS in our faces.. if it's WinXP relevant then they should blasted well say so... *and breath*..

 

Sorry... just does my nut in... :oops:

 

Thanks GD..

[Gatt]

Anyone managed how to get images to auto partition/format drives during deployment?

 

I have converted a few legacy images to RIS but still have to format the drive manually or else end up with a WINDOWS.OLD folder.

 

Some Legacy scripts are failing with an error similar to 80360051 - which i cannot (yet) find on Google

[Quackers]

Those that have used sysprep before should be ok, but for those that have not, you create your Image as you want, then make a folder on the root of C:\ called Sysprep. In there copy sysprep.exe and setupcl.exe . Also pop in a sysprep.inf file like the one below.....

 

;SetupMgrTag

[unattended]

OemSkipEula=Yes

 

[userData]

ProductID=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

FullName = "Fullname"

OrgName = "Orgname"

ComputerName = %MACHINENAME%

 

[RegionalSettings]

LanguageGroup=1

SystemLocale=00000809

UserLocale=00000809

InputLocale=0809:00000809

 

[GuiUnattended]

AdminPassword="password"

EncryptedAdminPassword=NO

OemSkipWelcome = 1

OemSkipRegional = 1

TimeZone = %TIMEZONE%

 

[Display]

BitsPerPel = 32

XResolution = 1024

YResolution = 768

VRefresh = 60

 

[Networking]

 

[NetServices]

MS_Server=params.MS_PSched

 

[identification]

JoinDomain = %MACHINEDOMAIN%

DoOldStyleDomainJoin = Yes

 

 

 

then run sysprep.exe and click run mini setup and the click reseal.

 

 

Next you need to upload the image to a server, so you can either boot into the Image Capture Utility which you can create from the WDS Managment tool, or you can boot into Windows PE which again can be made from the WDS Managment tool. If you choose the Image Capture Utility follow the instructions, if you choose Windows PE you need to map a network drive to your WDS Server, go to the folder with ImageX in, and the run the following command "imagex.exe /compress fast /capture c: X:\4222A.wim "Name of the Image here" /verify" (replace X with your mapped network drive letter). Once uploaded go to the WDS Console on the server and add that image in, the boot of network and select that image.

 

To create the Windows Capture Utility Boot thingy, you need to go in to the WDS Console, Click Bootimages, right click your Windows Vista Image and select Create Capture Boot Image, once created add this new image in.

 

Thats how to do a Windows XP Image using WDS. Sorry if its a bit all over the place, i've only just got to grips with it my self. Windows Vista is the same, except you have to use the Vista version of Sysprep, and you use XML Answerfiles

[Gatt]

Ah Cheers Quackers will give that a bash later

[Uraken]

Can someone please tell me whether wds/ris can be used to deploy a complete image of a base machine ie complete with office, sims etc, i have it ris set up but its no use to me if it can't deliver prebuilt images or have to fath with msi installs etc, i'm loathed to buy ghost but other than some open source stuff this seems to be the only thing that will do this?

[GrumbleDook]

We use RIS to deploy complete images containing all relevant and required software ... and we are looking at using WDS to this this in future.

[Uraken]

great so i can stop banging my head against the wall and ask how you do it Tony, like i say i have it set up but really want to deliver complete images.

[GrumbleDook]

I can only really talk about the RIS stuff at the moment as we do not have a live WDS setup ... RIS is covered over on the RIS sticky and the transfer over to WDS is available from Quackers' post above, or the MS documentation ...

 

If any actually has set this up WDS from scratch I would also like to here about it ... but it will be a few weeks before we have a live setup

[Ric_]

RIPREP is the technology you need to research... the RIPREP images can be converted to WIM images for WDS AFAIK. I would assume WDS has an equivalent tool to RIPREP.

[Geoff]

If you look at this page here:

 

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/9e197135-6711-4c20-bfad-fc80fc2151301033.mspx?mfr=true

 

And scroll down to 'Creating Images'. The section that deals with the equivelent of RIPREP is the 'Install images' section.

[Uraken]

marvelous cheers chaps.this one is a good one as well http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6345_11-5192174.html

[ptuttle]

Help me out here...So I created a capture image and successfully uploaded a WINXP SP2 up to my WDS server. When attempting to add the newly created WIM file as a boot image, it gives me an error "The file does not contain a valid boot image". Any ideas? I used setupmgr to create a sysprep.inf file and I placed it into c:\sysprep. I'd really love to be able to deploy WinXP using WDS Native.

 

Thanks in advance.

[jaybot]

Hey, we have been setting up WDS at my work for only Windows XP as Vista isn't suitable for our network yet.

Just thought I'd put a few things in that I have learnt:

 

You can run wds in mixed mode or native mode - Mixed mode lets you use RIPREP images while migrating to wds. I dont know much about RIS as we have previously been using ghost with a sysprep image - moving on since the ghost license is expensive.

 

A boot Image is a winpe image -

You need the boot.wim from the Vista DVD to be able to access a menu of all suitable install images as it contains Setup.exe.

 

Install Images are images that have been sysprepped and captured using wdscapture.exe or imagex.exe from a winpe image.

 

wdscapture is like a gui for imagex that will let you capture and also upload a sysprepped image.

 

If an image doesn't show up in WDS on the client pc it is because the HAL doesn't match the computer - the setup program has a detection which was bad for us as we use a script to update the sysprep.inf so it changes the hal to the correct version - we overcame this by using an autounattend.xml file to force choosing the image and then running scripts after setup.

 

Longhorn - Deployment Technet Forum can be a good resource if you run into any problems.

 

WDS can be a bit confusing at first.

 

You will want to install WAIK for customising winpe wim files.

[Gatt]

We are having a few problems with WDS

 

1) RIPREP Images not converting to WIM files with following error:

Error occured while trying to execute command.
Error Code 0x80360051

 

2) Captured XP Images keep asking for VLK - even though its entered into the sysprep.inf file, also it doesn't pick up a PC Name even though its already in AD with a GUID.

 

3) Images fail with an error of 0x00000002 when created via BDD

 

Also, how do you get WDS to auto-format the HDD before deploying Images (Coverted RIPREP Images) as well as prompt for PC name & OU if not in AD (aka RIS Auto/Custom setup options)?

[jaybot]

I'm not sure about the riprep errors/Naming.

 

For the hard drive formatting this can be setup in an unattend.xml file.

[contink]

Just a quick nugget of intel for anyone trying to insert drivers into a legacy RIS style install as part of WDS..

 

You need to put the drivers in the i386 file and restart the WDS service and NOT follow the old procedure re: $OEM$/Drivers/Nic/ as this just doesn't work.

 

Hope that helps..

[Grommit]

... mmmmmm... Me thinks Ghost is a little simpler

[maniac]

Sorry to dig up this thread, has anyone got any ideas how to add a network driver to the windows PE environment?

 

I've sucessfully used WDS to image windows XP on a few types of machine, but I've one type of IBM machine that gives me an error 'can't communicate with the WDS server' whenever I boot it up in the image capturing mode. The only reason I can come up with is that it doesn't have the correct network drivers loaded.

 

I've trawled the net, but information is sketchy and not very clear when it is there.

 

Any help apprecicated

 

Cheers,

 

Mike.