Deploying Vista Remotely

 Sanjay Majumdar

One of the most challenging tasks for any IT managers is to install or upgrade operating systems across hundreds of desktops. It can be a nightmare. With Windows Vista just round the corner, IT managers need to be ready to face this challenge again. Thankfully, Vista has a feature that will make the job easier. Let's see how.

Prerequisites

Before you start mass OS deployment, on a barebones machine, you need a few things in hand. You need one machine configured with Vista and all commonly used software in your organization. We call this the built machine.

Next you need Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK), which you can download from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=53552. Setup a separate Windows 2003 server with RIS services enabled. You also need another machine with Windows XP or 2003 Server, having a CD-writer (we call this the administrator's machine). In this machine, we will do script coding and other raw work.

The entire deployment process would be like this. We first create a Window PE CD, which will be used to create an image of the OS & apps on the built machine. Then the image of the built machine will be transferred to common storage (NAS or SAN).

Then we port the Windows PE CD to the RIS Server so that the new-built client machine can be booted via RIS. On the new-built machine, a partition would be created and formatted automatically. Then the old built machine image, that we copied to the NAS, will be transferred to the new-built machine and deployed.

Creating Windows PE CD

On the Administrator machine install the downloaded Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK). To create a Windows PE CD, open a Command console and go to the Program Files\ Windows AIK\Tools\ PETools\directory. Issue the command: 'Copype.cmd x86 C:\WinPE.'

This will copy Window PE files to the c:\winPE folder. Now give the commands given below to copy the imaging utility to winPE \iso folder.

Copy C:\Program files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe C:\WinPE\iso\

After this open a notepad on your machine and add the following lines:

ntfs.log

hiberfil.sys

pagefile.sys

"System Volume Information"

RECYCLER

Windows\CSC



*.mp3

*.zip

*.cab

\WINDOWS\inf\*.pnf

Save this file as 'wimscript' in c:\winpe\iso. You can even put a script to capture the image of the built machine. For example, we are creating a batch script to capture image. Plus, we also created a batch file to prepare a fresh partition on a new-built machine, finally deploying the captured image on it.

In order to create the image capturing batch script, you can use the script given below. This script takes the image of the built machine and moves it to the network storage.

---image.bat------

set echo off

Echo “--------Capturing Image from the Built- Machine----“

Echo “---------Press any Key to Proceed---------“

Pause

Imagex /capture C: C:\vista.wim "Vista image" /verify

Echo “Connecting to NAS or File Server and maps network share with drive

letter F: ”

Net use f: \\server_name\share

Echo “Copying........Captured image to the NAS or File Server”

Copy c:\vista.wim to f:

Echo “ Captured image has been moved to the network storage successfully”

----image.bat ends----

Save this file to C:\WinPE\iso\location.

After this you need to create another batch script, which will create a fresh partition on the new-built machine and format the disk. Then the script will move the captured image of the built machine from network storage to the new-built machine and apply the image on it. The batch script for deployment is given below.

--deploy.bat---

set echo off

Echo “--------Deployment from the WIM Image to Deployment Machine -----“

Echo “---------Press any Key to Proceed---------“

Pause

Echo “Creating New Disk Partition”

diskpart

select disk 0

clean

create partition primary size=20000

select partition 1

active

format

exit

Echo “Connecting to NAS or File Server and maps network share with drive letter F:”

Net use f: \\server_name\share

Echo “Copying.......Captured image to the NAS or File Server”

Copy f:\vista.wim to C:\

Echo “Applying the WIM image to the new built machine “

Imagex /apply C:\vista.wim 1 c:

Echo “Image successfully Deployed

--end deploy.bat---

Save this file to C:\WinPE\iso location.

Next, you need to create an ISO image of Windows PE distribution (C:\WinPE\ISO).

For this we use an OSCDimg tool, which will create a Windows PE ISO, and contains all the changes. To create an ISO Image, issue the following

commands:

Cd Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\

Oscdimg -n –bc:\WinPE\etfsboot.com c:\WinPE\ISO c:\WinPE\winpe.iso

You will get winpe.iso in c:\WinPE\ location and then burn this ISO image to a CD. One can use this CD on a built or new-built machine to capture and restore WIM images. To capture an image, boot the built machine with this CD and from the Command Prompt use image.bat script. To restore back the image on the new-built machine, just boot it from this CD and use the deploy.bat script. If you have already created the WIM image of a built-machine using the process mentioned above, and you want that all new or old new-built machines, should boot from this CD ISO via network, and WMI Vista image gets applied to the new-built machines. For this you have to tweak your RIS server a wee bit. The next part will show how this is done.

Preparing RIS server

Here, we'll configure the RIS server in such a way that it can boot the new-built machine Windows PE. On the RIS server, first locate the \RemoteInstall\Setup\ english\Images folder. Then create a subfolder for Windows PE (\winpe). After this, create another subfolder in the \Windows PE folder named \i386.

Now copy the customized winpe.iso image that we have created above to

\RemoteInstall\Setup\english\Images\ winpe\ i386\. Again create a subfolder named 'templates' inside \RemoteInstall\Setup\ english\Images\winpe\i386 named \templates.

Then from the Windows PE CD, copy Ntdetect.com and Startrom. com to the \RemoteInstall\Setup\english\Images\winpe\ i386\ templates folder. Finally, from the Windows PE CD, copy \i386\Setupldr.exe \RemoteInstall\ Setup \english\Images\ winpe\ i386\ templates folder, and then rename Setupldr.exe to Ntldr. After this restart the RIS server and you can test RIS server by booting the new-built machine using PXE network boot.

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