Booting ESX VMware Guest Machines from the Network
KB ID 0000310 Problem I do a lot of deployment testing for things like WDS, Ghost and SCCM. Now my test bed is entirely virtual, so any new technology testing, or proof of concept work is a lot easier. Anything that involves PXE booting the VM’s is not turned on by default though. Solution 1. Either from the VM itself, or from its entry in your VI client “Edit the VM’s Settings”. 2. Options tab > Boot...
Windows Deployment Services and Symantec Ghost
KB ID 0000108 Problem There’s very little about this that seems to be stored in one place out there on the Internet, Why would you want to use Ghost and WDS together anyway? Well once upon a time we used the PXE element is RIS, (WDS’s Predecessor) to use the Symantec GhostCast server. So yes I understand why people raise an eyebrow because you can achieve all your imaging needs with WDS alone. however people have invested...
WDS (Server 2003) Deploying Windows XP
For WDS on 2008 with Windows 7 Click Here KB ID 0000107 Problem This is aimed at people who want to capture a pre built machine and roll that image out to many PC’s. The client machine can either be vista or XP, at the time of writing most corporate’s are still using XP so I’ll use XP for this example. The whole procedure was done on the workbench in Virtual Server, which is how I recommend you try doing this before...
VMware ESX – WDS Fails “The network location cannot be reached”
KB ID 0000308 Problem Whilst trying to contact a WDS server from an ESX client machine (though this can happen on a physical machine also). You see the following error, The network location cannot be reached, For information about network troubleshooting, se Windows Help. Solution This is because the WindowsPE image you are using to Capture/Deploy does not have the network drivers for the NIC in the machine you are imaging (At...
Adding / Injecting Drivers into WindowsPE
KB ID 0000218 Problem A while ago I wrote an article about adding drivers to a WindowsPE Image, this was part of an installing Symantec Ghost with WDS procedure. Recently one of my colleagues was using my instructions, and despite his best efforts could not get the procedure to work with a new PC (Intel NIC). So he decided to give it a go with the new version of the WAIK he was successfull, but the procedure is slightly different....