Server 2003 - RIS

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

I'm looking at installing RIS at my new school, to make building machines a little bit easier. The thing is, I don't want to pay for Ghost.

 

My old network manager has informed me there is a way to put an image on a machine without using Ghost.

 

Does anyone have any ideas about this as he couldn't remember how it was done?

[tosca925]

YOu don't ned Ghost to use RIS. We have been using RIS for over 3 years now and all our images are done this way.

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

But how?

[m25man]

But how?

 

You have come to the right place thats for sure, but your question demonstrates that your Windows Server skill sets are a little on the weak side!

Be prepared to do a significant amount of study as RIS is not something you can easily set up without at least a basic knowledge of Windows Server and Networking Fundamentals or seek some practical assistance from someone who knows, that is local to you!

There are some good stickies already on the subject elswhere on this site read them first then come back!

[mrforgetful]

When you say 'old network manager' does that mean you're now in that role?

 

To be honest if you've not learnt about RIS I'd forget it and look at WDS (Windows Deployment Services) because as soon as you install Service Pack 2 on your servers that's what you'll have to use.

 

Seems pointless learning one thing when you'll have to learn another in a couple of months.

 

Unless of course, you plan on keeping a RIS server going somewhere.

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

m25man - By old network manager, I mean a network manager that has left. The HT can't be arsed to replace him so I've been lumped with the responsibilitie's.

 

Now this is where I get defensive, because I hereby make an offer for anyone to come to this school and take a look around, and then tell me what I have done is not impressive. I'm not planning on standing still, and have been pushing the network development on in the same way as the old network manager used to. It is for this reason that I would like to know how to set this up.

 

Yes, my server skill sets may not be the best, but they are by no means the worst especially seeing as though I'm a web developer by nature and not a techie.

 

I'm sorry for having a rant, but I take digs at my personal qualifications, knowledge and achievements to heart very easily. After all, you said it - I have come to the right place for help. So help me and stop trying to put down what I do and what I do not know.

 

mrforgetful - Thanks for the advice. I will have a look into WDS.

[mrforgetful]

Be careful.

 

We've been without a Network Manager for 3 years. Sure it's great to learn and do stuff yourself, but it's not so good when muggins here has to do the work without the pay that comes with it.

 

(Can't be paid the money as it's still going to the old NM - long story)

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

Be careful.

 

We've been without a Network Manager for 3 years. Sure it's great to learn and do stuff yourself, but it's not so good when muggins here has to do the work without the pay that comes with it.

 

(Can't be paid the money as it's still going to the old NM - long story)

 

I bet it is a long story haha.

 

Yeah, on one hand I'm not happy with just being lumped with all these responsibilities, but on the other hand it's good to be thrown in at the deep end and learn new skills. I've always thought the best way of learning was by making mistakes.

 

Saying that, any big changes that are made to the network are done in VMWare. Never had any unplanned downtime since the NM's left, and there's been some pretty big changes made.... Such as moving from CC3 to Vanilla.

[tosca925]

(Can't be paid the money as it's still going to the old NM - long story)

 

After 3 years???????????????????

[Guest Guest]

^ Agreed that WDS is the way forward (i havnt used it but it will be forced on us soon so...)

 

If you dont plan on moving to sp2 in the near future then RIS could be a good start. Its really really fun too

 

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

I used a program called 'nlite' to make unattend disks. I think it's from HP and completely free. I found that handy when using RIS. to build individual machines.

 

What I was after though is how to make one computer perfect, create an image to the server, then put that server on 30 PC's so all that needs to be done is a NEWSID and join the domain. And I need to do this without using Ghost.

[mrforgetful]

(Can't be paid the money as it's still going to the old NM - long story)

 

After 3 years???????????????????

 

Yep.

[mrforgetful]

I used a program called 'nlite' to make unattend disks. I think it's from HP and completely free. I found that handy when using RIS. to build individual machines.

 

What I was after though is how to make one computer perfect, create an image to the server, then put that server on 30 PC's so all that needs to be done is a NEWSID and join the domain. And I need to do this without using Ghost.

 

From what I understand I don't think you can do this with RIS, you'd need to assign all your programs using MSIs in GP.

 

Could be wrong though as I use Ghost/RIS.

[Quackers]

I used a program called 'nlite' to make unattend disks. I think it's from HP and completely free. I found that handy when using RIS. to build individual machines.

 

What I was after though is how to make one computer perfect, create an image to the server, then put that server on 30 PC's so all that needs to be done is a NEWSID and join the domain. And I need to do this without using Ghost.

 

From what I understand I don't think you can do this with RIS, you'd need to assign all your programs using MSIs in GP.

 

Could be wrong though as I use Ghost/RIS.

 

You can do that with RIS and WDS. You get the PC as you want it, then run ripprep from the \i386\admin\ folder on the RIS Server's REMISNT share.

[mrforgetful]

Oh right. Learn something new every day etc etc

[tosca925]

Have a read of this site

 

THis site is also a good resource for Windows 2003 and many other things as well.

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

Thanks for your help tosca925 and mrforgetful.

 

Although the site you provided said it was hard to set up. I set it up on a testing server in under 30 minutes with no glitches. I ran the RiPrep util on a PC and it worked a treat.

 

Now I'm wondering why we ever wasted our money on Ghost because we don't even need to multicast really. Obviously when we bulk build machines its in the holidays when no-one is in, so we can afford for our network to be flooded from building machines.

[mrforgetful]

I've found that RIS takes ages to transfer an image. I'm talking hours for one PC instead of 15 minutes for a room full.

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

I haven't tried this in bulk, but when I tried putting an image on my testing machine it only took about half an hour. It didn't have a lot of software installed but it had quite a lot of video files on the C: Drive.