RIS... For the love of Pete.. HELP!

[contink]

I've spent 4 days trying to get WDS working for XP using the legacy system and despite literally hundreds of hours I'm hitting a brick wall.

 

Can someone with a little time, patience and plenty of experience with RIS please PM me with a number I can call and walk through a few things.. I'm about ready to jack it all in and become a monk

 

Ta...

 

 

FYI: I've been trying to use the AutoImage (the new name for AutoRIS) and it's just hitting all sorts of problems with some of the drivers.. Specifically I can't seem to get it to install the video and/or audio drivers automatically..

 

Since then I've turned to WDS and tried an XImage using some help from here and MS and hit another brick wall... before trying to get riprep to run and hitting permissions issues.

 

I'm now tired, making mistakes and desperate for some sane expertise to help me figure out a way to get something working..

 

Any and all assistance, donations to my therapy bills, etc... much appreciated... 8O :oops: :? 8O

[SimpleSi]

RIS/WDS - Just say no - you know it makes sense

 

regards

Simon

 

PS To be honest though mind you my method of pluggin a working drive into a new machine and cloning it failed yesterday as well :oops: But I only lost 45 mins of my time

[contink]

The dumbest thing about all of this is that I had a working RIS at another school that was fine but I missed all the hoo-ha about Win2k3 and SP2 until it was too late..

 

RIS would be good if I could get it working... but I've decided to take an empirical or step by step approach to the AutoImage tool..

 

We'll see...

[Gatt]

Are you able to get the RIS/WDS PXE Boot menu?

If not then u need the boot.wim file from a Vista Business/Enterprise DVD and add it into WDS's Boot Image section

[StewartKnight]

I got a generic RIS image to work, I even got one to recognise alternative drivers, what I couldn't get to work was flamin Dell drivers.... and guess who the schools main supplier is!!!

[contink]

Are you able to get the RIS/WDS PXE Boot menu?

If not then u need the boot.wim file from a Vista Business/Enterprise DVD and add it into WDS's Boot Image section

On legacy you don't seem to need those files as I get the PXE fine... I didn't when I tried mixed or native mode so I guess that missing file was the root cause there.

 

What was happening was lack of drivers installing during the setup...

 

Since then however I realised that I'm going about things with everything at once so I decided to attack it differently and run nline, ryanvm, etc... one stage at a time and keep a copy at each point.

 

Weirdly this seems to have done SOME of the trick.. I now have one type of PC completing perfectly while the other is somehow losing all the RIF unattended data and deciding it needs user input for users, etc... weird doesn't cover it.

 

Not entirely sure what I've done right BUT now that I have a bit more of a clue and taking things less "all at once", I'm going to take a couple of machines home and play on my home network where chocolate, tea and a decent sofa are within easy reach... I will not be beaten!!

[contink]

YES!! I f***ing own this network...

 

*cue: insane dancing around the pclab*

 

C'mon... !! :!: :!:

 

 

.. and yes I will share how I did it but you're going to need me to stop grinning first! 8)

[ChrisH]

VMware and a virtual DC and client are the best method in testing stage. Thats how I did mine. I used autoimage and all my machines get all their drivers apart from some with a slightly different mobo which I keep forgetting to add. All my dells no problem. Im running in legacy mode.

[tarquel]

I've tried a interesting approach... and I'll let you know if it pans out

 

contink - knew i recognised your handle on RS's forum

 

Nath

[edie209]

I have RIS working fine with many different dell pcs (i have used Autoimage to create my images) So I am willing to talk you through that if you would like but as for wds I have not yet updated my ris server yet I think I will have to do some testing first. Unless of course someone finds the answer and posts a complete howto

[OverWorked]

Don't update your RIS server with WDS unless you have to - ie you need it to deploy Vista.

 

My RIS (perfectly OK for years) died around the time I upgraded to Server 2003 R2 and SP2. I thought installing WDS would fix it, but it made things worse, as that didn't work either and there's no way back to RIS after installing WDS.

 

I now have no Remote Install system at all. I'll have to set up another server with just SP1 and use that, at least until I get this mess sorted out. (I'll have to start a new thread for that - tomorrow probably).

[Ric_]

SP2 installs WDS.... not really recommended to run your servers without service packs now is it?

[OverWorked]

Ric - I know. Running without SP2 on one server will just be a temporary measure until I get to grips with WDS.

 

At the moment, because RIS has gone, WDS will only install and run in native mode, so can't be used with my old XP CD-based images. I can't reinstall RIS as it's gone from the Add/Remove Windows components and RISETUP.exe has gone.

 

The only way to get WDS in mixed mode will be to:-

 

1) Set up a new server with SP1 (I might use a virtual machine)

2) Install RIS, and get it working the way it used to be. Thankfully the old REMINST share is intact.

3) Ugrade to SP2 and see if RIS is still working afterwards - it *should* be.

4) If RIS is working, install WDS in mxed mode and use that.

 

This is a lot of unnecessary work. It's going to be a long day. ](*,)

[contink]

Right... as promised here's a quick rundown of what I did to get RIS, or rather WDS Legacy (abbrev to WDSL), working.

 

WDSL was up and running ok with a base CD SP2 image so the main issues seemed to come from getting an updated image to load..

 

I tried using a RIS original image from a different school/server site but with amended details for the new school and it basically borked so I decided to start from scratch using the same tools I used before (ie: autoimage which pulled together ryanvm, nlite, driverpacks).

 

In a nutshell it seems that autoimage (AI) isn't/wasn't compatible with the SP2 updates and after a LOT of abortive attempts to use AI with my RIS installs I finally opted for a stage by stage approach.

 

Basically that means copying the base image across to my laptop (where all the tools were installed) and then running an individual stage creating a new image each time.. This amazingly seemed to work brilliantly and just required a little tweaking as per various posts in the AI forums.

 

When I was done I just uploaded the final stage to the RIS setup folder and restarted the WDS service (yep there is no longer a BINSL service) and then try the network boot.

 

It does work but don't try to use AI with RIS just yet... grab a copy, take it slow and tweak as you go... it's a LOT more effective.

[tarquel]

No doubt, RS will have that in hand soon contink

 

But how how how do you get pxe booting to work?

 

See the other thread for more info of how its not working for some [me hehe] but I just cant get the client machines to pxe boot any more

 

Have ticked and checked all the seemingly obvious things, but nothing prevails

 

Regards

Nath