I’ve been doing some prep work with WDS this week for a client, (I’ve covered Deploying Windows 7 with WDS before). So I went to check if there was a new WAIK as Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have had a Service Pack 1 released since last time I deployed windows 7 in bulk.
And sure enough, there is an update. (Though the update is for WindowsPE Not the SIM tools I would be using).
2. Download the supplement to your machine (Note: is comes down in .iso format).
3. As the files are in .iso format you can burn them to a DVD, though I prefer to use 7Zip and just extract the files as if they were a zip folder/archive. By default WAIK will install to “C:Program FilesWindows AIK” (Note: your location may be different, check). In this example I’ve extracted the update to E:WAIK_SP1, change your path accordingly.
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 heavily in Ghost over the years and rely on ghost images – also if you are using ghost to back up machines, then you may want to image them WITHOUT sysprep-ing then first (Which WDS does not seem to want to let you do.)
Doing this in a virtual environment tends to be fraught with problems, with both with Microsoft and
VMware, I’ve had trouble testing this. But when using real machines it works fine – remember any drivers you need must be Windows Vista ones. And Windows PE wont run in a Guest VM in VMware ESX, unless you set the client type to Vista (Even if it is another OS).
Pre Requisites
1. The Server needs an installed and working DHCP Scope, WDS adds a PXE option to it.
2. You need a reference PC set up.
3. You need to download the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit).
Solution
Phase 1: Install WDS
1. To start with, you need to add WDS as a Windows component, Start > Run > appwiz.cpl {enter}.
2. Scroll down to Windows Deployment Services and tick the box > Next. Note: This in an R2SP2 Version of Windows Server 2003, if you cannot see WDS then install SP2.
3. WDS is added (The server may ask for the install CD).
4. Click Finish.
5. Click “Yes” to Reboot.
6. Start > Administrative Tools > Windows Deployment Services.
7. Expand Servers.
8. Select your server > Actions > Configure Server.
9. Next.
10. Provide a path to the location you want to store your images in.
11. If the location is on the system drive you may see this warning > Click Yes.
12. Tick Both > Next.
13. Bottom Option > DONT tick the box > Finish.
14. WDS Copies over some files and configures itself.
15. Untick the box, we are going to do this manually and just add what we want. > Finish.
6. Click Start > Run > notepad {enter} File > Open > Navigate to c:winpe_x86mountwindowssystem32startnet.cmd (Note: change files of type to “all files” or you wont see it).
7. Add ghost32.exe (as shown) then save the file and exit.
8. Switch back to the Windows PE Tools Command Prompt, Execute the following command,
peimg /prep c:winpe_x86mountwindows {enter}
9. Type “Yes” {enter}.
10. When done it should say “PEIMG completed the operation successfully.”
1. Start > Administrative Tools > Windows Deployment Services. > Expand Windows Deployment Services > Servers > Your Server > Right Click Boot Images > Select “Add Boot Image”.
2. Browse to the Boot.wim file you created above.
3. Give the image a sensible name and description > Next.
4. Next
5. The image will be coped into WDS.
6. When done you should see it on the right.
Phase 5: Set GhostCast Server to Accept an Image
1. Start > All Programs >Symantec Ghost > Ghostcast Server.
2. Give it a Session Name > Select Create Image (Assuming you have a reference machine ready to image TO the server) > Click Browse to Find a location that has enough space to hold the image file. > Note you will need to create the filename.gho to continue. > Click “Accept Clients”.
Phase 6: PXE Boot your client to the network, and image it
1. Remember to boot from the network the client must have a PXE capable network card and it must be set in the BIOS to be higher in the Boot order that the system drive, most machines now give you a key to press on boot, to boot from the network (Usually F12).
2. Cast you mind back to phase 3 step 7, those are the commands getting executed, winpeinit is the plug and play loader for windows PE.
Note: If you are using VMware and you have not set “Vista” as the machine type it may hang here and never launch ghost.
3. Like an old friend, Ghost appears > OK.
4. GhostCast > Unicast.
5. Give it the session name you set up in phase 5, > Either let ghost find the ghost cast server or enter its IP address. > OK > Select the Disk you wish to Image > OK > When asked about compression Select High > Click OK > Imaging will start.
Note: Make sure it displays a valid IP address at the bottom or it will fail, (If it says 127.0.0.1 then you need to add the drivers for his machine to the image).
6. Back at the GhostCast Server > You will see the session imaging across.
Note: To Deploy an Image TO the client, the operation is the same exept in the ghostcast server tick “Restore Image” and point it to the image-name.gho file to deploy, and on the client select “Multicast” when PXE Booted.
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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 trying it live. I wrote this because I struggled to find a good walk through on the internet, that was shorter than a squillion pages, I’d rather spend two weeks working out how to do it myself rather than RTFM, so I’ll save you good folks the trouble.
To do the whole thing you need to do three things, 1) Set up and configure WDS. 2) Image a reference PC and 3) Deploy that image to other PC’s.
Pre Requisites
1. The Server needs an installed and working DHCP Scope, WDS adds a PXE option to it.
2. You need a reference PC set up and “Sysprepped” with enough room on its drive to store the image.
3. You need the install DVD for either Windows Vista or Server 2008.
Note If you still want to use Ghost with WDS CLICK HERE
Solution
Phase 1 Setup up And Configure WDS
1. To start with, you need to add in WDS as a Windows component, Start > Run > appwiz.cpl {enter}
2. Scroll down to Windows Deployment Services. and tick the box > Next.
Note: This in an R2SP2 Version od Windows Server 2003, if you cannot see WDS then install RIS and install WDS from the WAIK available to download from Microsoft.
3. WDS is added (The server may ask for the install CD)
4. Click Finish
5. Click Yes to Reboot.
6. Start > Administrative Tools > Windows Deployment Services.
7. Expand Servers.
8. Select your server > Actions > Configure Server.
9. Next.
10. Provide a path to the location you want to store your images in.
11. If the location is on the system drive you will see this warning > Click Yes.
12. Tick Both > Next.
13. Bottom Option > DONT tick the box > Finish.
14. WDS Copies over some files and configures itself.
15. Untick the box, we are going to do this manually and just add what we want. > Finish.
16. Right Click Boot Images > Add Boot Image.
17. Browse your Vista/2008 DVD to the sources directory and we are looking for “boot.wim” > Next.
18. Now change the name to something sensible like “Install an Image” > Next.
19. Next.
20. The Image is installed.
21. Finish.
22. Select the image you have just installed > right click it > Select “Create Capture Boot Image. “
23. Call it something sensible like “Capture an Image” > choose a location to save it (you need to save it with a .wim extension) > I call it capture.wim so I know what it is > Next.
24. The Image is created.
25. Finish.
26. Now we need to create a group to put out machine images in > Right click Install Images > Add Image Group.
27. Give it a name > OK.
28. Make sure it’s there.
29. Now we need to add the “Capture Image” we created in step 23 > Right click Boot Images > Add Boot Image.
30. Point it to the capture.wim file you created earlier.
31. Make sure its “Capture an Image” > Next.
32. Next.
33. The image will be imported.
34. Finish.
35. If you’ve done everything correctly you should see two entries under Install Images called “Capture an Image” and “Install an Image” When you see the boot menu later you will see why I named them this way.
Phase 2 Capture the Image from a Reference PC
36. Once you have build the reference PC, configured all the applications and settings, and ran sysprep. Boot it from the network (note you may need to alter the BIOS boot order to do this). Though most machines have a key sequence to press (F12 usually) to do a network boot (Note: in virtual server DEL enters the BIOS).
37. Now you can see why we named the images accordingly > Select Capture an image > Enter.
38. The files are loaded into memory.
39. Next.
40. Select the volume to image (if there’s nothing there then you either did not sysprep properly of the PE environment you are in has no drivers for the volume you want to image – Press shift and F10 if you can change to the C: drive then the drivers are there and sysprep is the problem. Give the image a name and description. > Next.
41. Enter a location on the PC to store the image > Put in the IP address or name of the WDS server > Connect.
42. Give it a username and password in the DOMIANusername format > OK.
43. Select the image group you created in step 27 > Finish.
44. First the image is copied locally.
45. Then its uploaded to the WDS Server.
46. When it hits 100% the button changes to Close > Click it > the Reference PC will reboot.
47. Back a the WDS Server right click Client Images > Select “Add Install Image”.
48. Navigate to the image that’s just been uploaded, it will be in the folder you set up in step 10 in a sub folder with the same name as your image group (if you can’t find it remember there’s still a copy on the Reference PC) > Next.
49. Next.
50. Next.
51. Finish.
52. There’s your image ready to go.
Phase 3 Image the Target PC’s
53. As above boot your target PC from the Network.
54. This time select “Install and Image” > Enter.
55. The files are loaded into memory.
56. It looks very Vista-ish but trust me it will install XP > Select the correct locale > Next.
57. Enter a username and password using the DOMAINusername format > OK.
58. Select the image you created earlier. > Next.
59. Select the drive to install in on > Next.
60. The image will install.
61. As soon as its finished it will reboot.
62. Depending on how you sysprepped XP you will either see this……………
63 ……….. or this. Job done.
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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 time of writing the VMXnet3 driver is NOT in the standard WindowsPE 3.0 image).
1. Get the drivers for the NIC, if they are the VMware VMXnet 3 drivers, you can find them on any guest machine running the VMware tools, (look in Program filesVMwareVMware ToolsDrivers), copy both the folders as indicated below.
2. If you ARE using WDS you will need to right click your boot images and export them.
3. Once you have the drivers and the images – use THIS PROCESS to inject the drivers into the image.
4. Finally in the WDS Administrative console, delete the boot Images and “Re-import” the ones you have just updated with the new drivers.
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Before Server 2008 R2 when we needed to inject drivers into our WDS images we had to do it like this.
Now however the process is a lot more elegant! Simply import the drivers into WDS, then inject them into the boot images (Yes the boot images NOT the Windows Images you are deploying!)
Solution
Add Driver Packages to Image is “Greyed out”
If while attempting to add drivers, the option to “Add Driver Packages to Image” is grayed out.
Then you may need to update your boot images from Server 2008/Vista images to 2008 R2/Windows 7 Images. (or from version 6.0.6000 to 6.1.7600).
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Seen when using WDS on Windows Server 2008 (and 2008 R2). When attempting to PXE boot a client machine, it sucessfully gets an IP address. But it times out at the TFTP stage.
This is a common occurance if the WDS server is also a DNS server. It happens on machines that have had the MS08-037 security update installed. Basically the ports that WDS needs are being reserved for DNS.
Solution
1. On the WDS server > Start > in the search/run box type regedit {enter}.
Saw this last week, while trying to use an unattended file for the roll out of some machines with WDS.
Every time you try and enter a value you get “The network path was not found” error, no combination of file path or UNC path seems to cure the problem.
Solution
This is a “work around” not a fix, essentially it will not accept any value you put into the path without throwing and error. If you close and reopen this page the value you enter has not been accepted.
So we are going to populate the entry by editing the registry, if you go back and view the entry afterwards it will STILL ERROR but the value will say put and the unattended file will work (providing the path you specify is correct of course!)
3. Locate the “Enabled” value and change it from 0 to 1.
4. Below this key you will see there is a key for each “image processor type”. I’m adding a 32 bit (x86) Unattended file so expand that, and set the “FilePath” value to your unattended xml file (Note: the path is from the WDS root directory, keep it simple and put your unattended file in the WDSClientUnattend folder. In this example mines called WDSClientUnattend.xml).
5. Finally restart the “Windows Deployment Services Server” service.
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Over the last couple of years I’ve done a lot of imaging of School PC’s I don’t know why but they come with a myriad of different drive and partition configurations. Even big vendors like HP and Dell ship their machines with recovery partitions these days.
If you are imaging with WDS this can cause a problem so what I usually want to do is remove all the partitions, create one big one that takes up all the drive, and format it as NTFS.
Solution
Before you begin make sure you are clued up on working with WDS unattended files, run through my instructions here.
The following procedure needs to be added to the WDS Unattended file NOT the unattended file for the image, (again run through KB0000180 if you are unsure.)
1. While editing your Unattended answerfile you need to locate, “Microsoft-Windows-Setup_neutral” and add “DiskConfiguration” to the “1 windowsPE” component.
2. Right click it and add a disk > Set Disk ID = 0 > Set WillWipeDisk = true.
3. Right Click > Create Partition > Set Extend = true > Set Order = 1 > Set Type = Primary.
4. Select Modify Partitions > Set Active = true > Set Extend = false > Set Format = NTFS > Set Label = SYSTEM > Set Letter = C > Set Order = 1 > Set Partition ID = 1.
5. This procedure will add the following to your unattended file.
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During a large rollout the more things you can automate the better, before you continue though be aware of one thing…
You can only automatically join a client to a domain if it has an auto generated random machine name!*
*Note: This is not 100% true, if you pre-stage the computer objects into Active Directory with the GUID of the machine (you can see this on the screen at pXe boot time, or get it from the BIOS) Then you can auto join the machines and they will come in with the correct name. However, if you have a large number of machines to build, this is more time consuming than simply renaming them after they have been imaged.
Solution
Before you begin make sure you are clued up on working with WDS unattended files, run through my instructions here.
The following procedure needs to be added to the images unattended file NOT the WDS Unattended file, (again run through KB0000180 if you are unsure.)
1. While editing your unattended answerfile you need to locate, “Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral”, add it to pass 4 (Specialize) and set the ComputerName entry to * (an asterisk).
Note: In this section you can also enter to windows product code, and owner details, as well as your time zone.
2. Then locate, “Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin”, add it to pass 4 (Specialize). Set the JoinDomain entry to the name of your domain. Set UnsecureJoin to “true”.
4. This procedure will add the following to your unattended file.
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