With RM CC3?

[petay87]

This is not a defo go ahead plan, more of a curiosity got the better of me question.

 

I was wondering if anyone has a FOG server working inside a RM CC3 network?

 

I was thinking that if I got a FOG server up and running, it would cut the build time of the machines in half. The plan was that I could have an image set ready to roll out that had just gone through the commissioning tools and was at the screen asking you for a computer name, setup username & password and where you wanted it in the active directory. This means that XP is already installed and all that CC3 needs to do is install its vast collections of "tools" and software that we have assigned to OU's in AD.

 

Am I right in assuming I could do this? I was planning on having only 2 or 3 images as we only have 2 or 3 sets of different types of machines, most all have the same hardware.

 

Any feedback or advice on this would be great!

 

Thanks

[PeterH]

Yes, we do something similar to that. Only thing is I'm not sure if you'll be able to sysprep the machine after running the commisioning tool. Or if the commissioning tool will continue to run properly after a sysprepped image has been loaded. What we do is to install the commisioning tool but not actually run it and then place a shortcut to it on the desktop. Then sysprep the machine and capture the image. Then to build a machine, just load the image, click the icon to launch the commissioning tool and you're away. We've done that for ages with laptops that we couldn't be bothered to build in the normal RM way.

[petay87]

Would you need to use "sysprep" doing it this way?

[PeterH]

Sorry forgot to say, we use WDS to capture and deploy the images which does require the machine to be sysprepped before it can be captured. Not sure about Fog as I've never used it. But I think best-practise is to sysprep before cloning anyway.

[petay87]

You're right that it would be good practice to use sysprep but does the RM Commissioning tools not have its own version of sysprep? otherwise how does the commissioning tool get around that issue?

[PiqueABoo]

Advice: You could do this but I'd use the time instead focusing on the next, post-CC3 system. Support stops for CC3 when MS XP support stops in April 2014, but personally I'd want a replacement in by summer 2013 which isn't that far away now.

[petay87]

We are already going CC4 but we have no "set" date so this like I said, it is more for my own curiosity than anything else and if we do implement it, it will at least help speed things up till CC4 comes along (more than likely no sooner than summer).

[PeterH]

You're right that it would be good practice to use sysprep but does the RM Commissioning tools not have its own version of sysprep? otherwise how does the commissioning tool get around that issue?

 

When you build a machine the RM way, using a build disk, it's a brand new installation of Windows. But if you're using an imaging tool like WDS or Fog, it's a clone of a previous installation. The best-practise is that sysprep is used to strip out SIDs and various other things from that original installation. Perhaps there is some documentation somewhere about exactly what sysprep changes. As far as I know, the RM tool doesn't do anything like that.