RIS, HAL compatibility and GPO/MSI

[Ken Levy]

We are a small company which has grown the number of PC's, one or two at a
time over the past 5 years. We now have a mix of Win98SE, WinNT 4.0 Wkst,
Win2000 Pro, WinXP Pro, WinNT 4.0 Server platforms with a similar mix of
Office versions (97 to XP).

We've reached the point where applying patches to all these different
platforms and maintaining proper antivirus protection has become a
nightmare.

We are going to be migrating to a clean install of SBS2000 and we plan to
rebuild the software on each PC to a common standard platform as we migrate
them, one by one, to the new domain.

My questions surround the use of RIS to deploy the operating systems and
Office. Our plan was to use RIPrep on the standard image and deploy this,
wiping each hard drive as we implement (we'll restore customizations from
backups).

The issue I am unsure of is that of RIS and the HAL on each machine. Where
can I find documentation that describes exactly what the HAL consists of?
I'd like to minimize the number of images we build and have to maintain
(ideally, one), but I don't know how to determine whether a particular
vintage PC will work on our "standard" build. How do I determine whether
the HAL for a particular image is compatible?

Second, is it better to include Office (admin install) in the "standard"
image PC that RIPrep builds from, or should I build the OS alone and then
use GPO distribution of MSI packages to deploy the Office package across
systems. My goal is to be able to deploy Windows Updates (via SUS) and
Office and other software updates from the server(s) automatically.

Please post any responses to the newsgroup. Thanks in advance.

Ken

 

[NIC Student]

Hi Ken,

My suggestion is to use RIS with the CD-based image of XP or 2000 because it
will install on most desktops without HAL considerations - if the OS will
install from the CD then RIS can install the same OS. If you want to tweak
your images with custom software and settings then you RIPREP your images
but then they are reliant on the client having the same HAL.

Install Office by GPO, that way you can update it with security patches,
make custom installs with MSTs, remove and upgrade it, and it is
self-healing. Use MSIs for all your software installs if you can rather
than include it in the image.

SUS is a good choice, we use it in our environment.

 

[Johan Arwidmark]

I do recommend using RIS or a thirdparty imaging tool for deploying
the core operating system only and then apply software using some
package technology (msi packages with AD and/or SMS)

RIS is great but I do not recommend using riprep...it's like an xcopy
that does not work...(IMHO)

SUS SP1 could be used for patch management, but do take a look at
third party solutions or the SUS feature pack for SMS since SUS SP1
"leaves somewhat to desire..."

I also recommend using a admin install of office as well as using the
english versions of both os and office with MUI-packs for alternate
language support.

Check out this site...
Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/itsolutions/mso/bdd/default.asp

regards
Johan Arwidmark

Windows User Group - Nordic
http://www.wug-nordic.net