Fasten the system depoyment in minutes inplace of hours with WDS

Installing and configuring the PC and make it member of your network whether it is new or old specially when you have to setup new-office where no of systems needs to be install/configure, which includes lot of activities to be carried out on all PCs likewise formatting the PC, installing OS, configuring system, installing the dozens of applications, configuring & patching them, installing printers and network configuration etc. etc. which not only 2-3hrs time consuming job but a repetitive task on number of computers is hectic/boring too.

. Microsoft's WDS (Windows Deployment Services). Many years ago I used Remote Installation Services (RIS) on a Windows 2000 Server to install Windows 2000 Pro & XP to clients on my network during my mcse classes. Sometime in the Windows Server 2003 timeframe RIS evolved into the much improved Windows Deployment Services (WDS). I never used as time went on since never really needed to use it, until the last month. I was given the old PCs to be used at new-site which requires formatting, install fresh OS and dozens of applications configuring them disabling the updates, applying patches, network configuration, adding printers etc on every PCs to minimze the user complaints on system performance. Which was very hectic and time consuming job to do on repeated basis on each systems. WDS imaging was the only solution I found and applying them over the network seemed to be the easiest way to do this.

I was wondering how things had changed now Windows 7/8 & Server 2008r2/2012 have been released. I could remember it involving lots of huge downloads like the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. So start googling and getting information on WDS which didn’t really seem to bring any up to date information so I ended up piecing together the info from lots of different blogs to get to the end result.

I have included the steps I took in the attached file in case it is of any help to you and is covered on x86 based image capturing/deployment.

Advantage of WDS.

Ø  Deploy systems in 10-15minutes inplace of 2-3hrs spending on it.

Ø  Need not of sitting infront of each PCs and following the wizard is no more required.

Ø  Need not of external dvd/cd drive to install non cd/dvd drive based lapi/desktop.

Ø  Can store different configuraion images i.e. lower/higher configuration systems.

Ø  Need not of keeping bunch of cd/dvd installer. 

STEP BY STEP GUIDE

Pre-requisites for WDS:

1.       Windows Server 2003r2/2008/08r2 Machine/VM and adding WDS role for the server (mine is VM)

2.       Boot image (x86) you will find it in your windows7_x86 DVD at (D:\Source) folder with name boot.wim

3.       A Physical PC as reference PC ( to capture the image of the same for deployment) with additional partition or usb storage media to save to image .wim file

4.       Sysprep Tools (get it from your XP-CD D:\SUPPORT\TOOLS extract the deploy.cab file to C;\sysprep.

5.       All clients must have PXE enabled (network boot feature)

Step 1 – Install WDS

1.a. Install the windows deployment services role from add server role and accept all the defaults but you may want to install it to a disk with enough space to store the images.

Once WDS installation completes open WDS console from server manger.

1.b. We need to add a “Boot image” by right clicking the Boot Image as shown in below screenshot, browse for the D:\Source\boot.wim file to give WDS something to load when the client asks. Give it a name like I used “Install Microsoft Windows XP (x86)”.

1.c. After it has been added, right-click the “Install Microsoft Windows XP (x86)” boot image and choose “Create Capture Boot Image”. A new wizard starts. Give the capture image mine like “PC Image Capture” and save it to anywhere you like, before clicking finish you have a check box on the bottom of wizard “add the image to boot image” select it to add the image to boot image or same can be done manually by locating it from the location where you have saved it and add it like you have added the “Install Microsoft Windows XP (x86)” image file from wind7 dvd.

Step 2 – Create a Reference PC

Because we want to deploy Windows XP we have to go through the creating a reference PC. With Vista and later you can just copy an install.wim file from the DVD exactly like you did above when adding the boot image.

2.a. Choose a spare PC and install Windows XP SP3, all applications and printers etc. and make all configuration you needs.

2.b. Prepare the Reference PC for Capture. We need to strip the reference PC of any unique names, Security Identifiers (SIDs) etc. before we can capture it. we can use the SysPrep tool for the same as mentioned in requirements above.

2.b.1.  D-click the setupmgr.exe from sysprem folder in c: drive.

 2.b.2. Type of Setup: Sysprep setup

2.b.3. Product: Windows XP Professional

2.b.4. License Agreement: covering this with No, do not fully automate the installation* / you can also fully automate the same.

2.b.5 Carry on through the wizard filling out the relevant info. When you get to the end of the wizard there is no “Finish” button, just use “Cancel” instead and save it to the sysprep folder.

2.b.6. Double click the sysprep.exe from sysprep folder

2.b.7. Click “Yes” to the agreement warning.

• Tick the box “Use Mini-Setup”.
• Shutdown Mode: Shutdown
• Click the “Reseal” button.

Sysprep will do it’s thing then shut down.

Step 4 – Capture the XP image

Now the image capturing of reference pc starts here. If you have secondary partition exist to store the image file then ok else attach you external usb drive to the physical pc.

4.a. Start the reference PC to Boot up. Press F9 to select boot option and select the network boot option else make the network boot your first boot device from BIOS.

4.b. Press F12 to launch the WDS. Be quick otherwise the PC will load Windows and start going through the mini setup.

4.c. Choose “PC Image Capture” (as shown in dos mode screenshot) from the WDS options.

Click Next on the capture wizard.

Note: that it will allow you to capture only the partition which you have syspreped else 

It will show you blank.

4.c.1. Select the C: from drop down list. Enter a location by click the browse button type

          A file name for the image like I used below:

           *** Install Windows XP-sp3 with Full AV & Office 2007***      (for >1GB RAM)

            *** Install Windows XP-sp3 with Basic AV & Office 2007***    (for <1gbram o:p="">

This process will take a while depending on how big you image is. Mine took 10 minutes to capture a 1.8 GB image. Click finish once complete.

4.c.2. let the pc restarts and follow the mini-setup wizard and finish it, if you have saved you the capture image on secondary drive of same (reference) PC and copy it to you external drive to upload on WDS server else not need.

4.c.3 Open WDS console and right click on Install Image then select add Install Image (as shown in below here. Brose for the .WIM file you have copied in external drive and add the same.

Final Step: Deploying the IMAGE

This process is similar to the capture step above.

1.     1.Boot from the network but this time choose the “Install Microsoft Windows XP (x86)” option from the WDS screen as shown below. This will load a GUI similar to the Windows 7 setup. It will list any images that are compatible with the PCs HAL type.

((Newer WIMs (like Vista or Win7) don’t care what HAL you have but XP is more picky. You can see the HAL type of your image by looking at the properties of it in the WDS console. Mine says acpiapic_mp, whereas another I created from a virtual machine is acpipic_up. The _up HAL only shows up on virtual machines but the _mp HAL from my physical Reference PC seems to work on motherboards in dc7700/ /dc7600 desktop’s.))

2.     2. Select one of the image we created and mentioned above from the list:

*** Install Windows XP-sp3 with Full AV & Office 2007*** 

      *** Install Windows XP-sp3 with Basic AV & Office 2007**

3.     Click next the image deploying gets starts.

YOU HAVE DONE:

You can add drivers to image, multicast the single image in order to reduce network traffic, etc with WDS.