Quote:
> A couple a days ago I was assigned a vitsa deployment project which will take
> place next week, I will basically be deploying about 150 computers in a
> school to brand new Dell workstations….Great! except that up until two days
> ago I haven’t looked at the vista deployments - or Vista all together for
> that matter, I expected to see good old RIS, RISSETUP and sysprep in
> Deploy.cab………….boy did it change!! So in a panic I quickly grabbed a few
> white papers and webcasts, And boy did I have to dump a lot of info in my
> head within two days (Wim files, imagex, WinPE, WAIK, BDD, WDS), did a lot of
> reading, watching and playing around, I now need to bring all the pieces
> together. I would greatly appreciate anyone’s professional input and answer a
> few (or a lot) of my questions.
>
> Objection:
> The organization is getting brand new computers from dell, all preloaded
> with vista, I need to configure all machines to the domain, load up about 8
> graphic application (illustrator. Photoshop, etc) and office, setup printers,
> configure a default profile. They requested that I blow all this down with an
> image from the network – using PXE booting and to fully automate the process,
> I do not need to preserve the user data.
>
> Setup Technican machine:
> Load up all utilities…BDD, WAIK etc.
>
> Setup Master machine:
> I will take one machine, boot up vista (using the dell preloaded install not
> a clean install), install all my applications, install all the printers,
> sysprep /generalize /shutdown.
>
> Capture image:
> Now I need to capture the image of that master machine (I guess what they
> call, thick image), Im still not clear what the proper way of capturing an
> image is, I actually successfully created a WinPE boot cd with ImageX on it
> (using copype and oscdimg), but I realized that there must be a more proper
> automated way to do this. I know that in BDD when running the new “Deployment
> Points” wizard, there is a setting “Ask if an image should be captured”,
> actually whats the point of this setting? If im about to deploy an image to
> the final destination, why would I want to capture an image? Unless perhaps
> this is the proper method of capturing an image? Is it? in any case I capture
> (assuming I know how to do this) and name it Joesimg.wim
>
> Setup Image for deployment/create OS:
> Once I have the Wim file of my new thick image, I will bring up BDD (the
> most powerful tool I have seen for quite some time). First ill create a new
> OS from the install.wim using the vista DVD (so that it creates the catalog
> file), Next I create another OS with my custom image Joesimg.wim.
>
> New Appliction/package/OOBD:
> There is obviously no point in creating a new application since it’s a thick
> image with all the apps, the same assume applies for OS packages and OOBD. Is
> it possible to add a new application without lots of scripting so that the
> install is fully automated?
>
> New Build:
> Next I create a new build and select my custom image here is where im a bit
> confused.
> 1)is the product key I supply during the build creation the only place I
> have to enter it in order for the product key screen not to show up?
> 2)I need this to be as much automated as possible, what do I need to put in
> the in the Unattend.xml file in order to fully automate this without a single
> prompt?, I guess the Time Zone, join the domain, computer name, Regional
> setting, local admin pass, AcceptEula, disk configuration, anything else? Is
> there a BDD wizard to put in all these settings or do I need to manually Edit
> the Unattend.xml file?
> 3)is it possible for the for the computer name to follow some sort of naming
> convention by using a variable?, for example I’d like to name them something
> like PC1-PC2 etc.
> 4)the dell machine comes with a 2GB recovery partition, do I need to
> preserve this partition? If not then how do I configure that it puts in a
> clean install? I know there is the ZTIDiskpart.txt script but im not sure how
> to use it, is ZTIDiskpart.txt the only method to wipe the partition or is it
> a setting in Unattend.xml? what will it do if I don’t configure the
> ZTIDiskpart.txt script, will it just install on top of the current OS? Or
> perhaps will BDD configure the Unattend.xml based on what it sees in the
> custom image? Keep in mind I do not need to preserve data.
> 5)in the Task Sequence area there is a “capture image” section, whats the
> purpose of this?
>
> Deployment Points:
> Next I’ll create a new deployment point (I will keep unchecked all the “ASK”
> options so that its automated), and update. Just to verify, the option to
> “Generate a Lite Touch bootable RAM disk ISO” is only needed If I plan to
> boot from CD/DVD not if im PXE booting?
>
> RIS/WDS:
> I have my WDS server all setup and configured, I open WDS native and add the
> LiteTouchPE_x86.wim boot file. Just to verify, I do not need to add any
> images to WDS because the WInPE boot file generated with BDD is configured to
> automaticly pull the image from the Distribution share? Also will BDD add the
> credentials to the Distribution share so I don’t have to enter it manually?
>
> A few more questions:
> 1) When I capture the image, does it save all drivers, printers, updates,
> applications? Im asking because im used to ghost and I know this is not a
> sector-by-sector based image.
> 2) Does BDD automatically create the winscript.ini file?
> 3) how do I add a NIC driver to a Windows PE image?
> 4) do I need to manually copy Unattend.xml from
> \Distribution\Control\WINDOWSVISTA to \RemoteInstall\WdsClientUnattend?
>
> That’s it for now, im sorry for the lengthy post but I need to get this
> perfect and I only have one more day
>
> Thanks tons!
>