Howto XP deployment on 10 Desktop?

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I've 10 new desktop (white box). I want to install fresh installation of Win
XP.
what is the best and proper way ?
 
In Adnan Rafik had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
I've 10 new desktop (white box). I want to install fresh installation
of Win XP.
what is the best and proper way ?
Click to expand...

Sysprep and an image...

Start here I suppose:

How to use the Sysprep tool to automate successful deployment of ... :
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302577

If it is only ten and you're new to this then, well, either be glad to learn
on a small amount or give up and do them all one by one but you'll want to
know about sysprep eventually.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my
declining years to the composition of a textbook which shall focus the
whole art of detection into one volume." - Sherlock Holmes
 
ok thnx.

Once I've the image OS and SYSPREP then how do I do it on the destination
computer.
 
Galen said:
In Adnan Rafik had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:


Sysprep and an image...

Start here I suppose:

How to use the Sysprep tool to automate successful deployment of ... :
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302577

If it is only ten and you're new to this then, well, either be glad to learn
on a small amount or give up and do them all one by one but you'll want to
know about sysprep eventually.
Click to expand...


If the 10 machines are all the same hardware you wont need Sysprep, any
imaging package like Ghost or Altiris will do the trick nicely without
you having to worry about sysprepping first. Well worth the time to work
sysprep out though if you're planning on moving to multiple hardware
platforms, and it can be very problematic when you're initially sorting
it out so sooner rather than later is always good if you're likely to
need it in the future.
 
Adnan said:
I've 10 new desktop (white box). I want to install fresh
installation of Win XP.
what is the best and proper way ?
Click to expand...

Unattended Help web pages:

By CD/DVD...
http://unattended.msfn.org/

By network...
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

Your other choice might be to create a universal image - but I think you
would get more flexibility with an unattended installation.

http://www.leinss.com/uniimg.html
(See the WinXP Blog addition - imaging with universal image)

http://www.gc.peachnet.edu/www/wbeck/W2KXP.htm#Master
(More on building and ghosting a master image)

Something "extra" - to lock down these systems if needed.

Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...56-E3DA-42EA-857D-92B716077A84&displaylang=en
 
In Hunter01 had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
If the 10 machines are all the same hardware you wont need Sysprep,
any imaging package like Ghost or Altiris will do the trick nicely
without you having to worry about sysprepping first. Well worth the
time to work sysprep out though if you're planning on moving to
multiple hardware platforms, and it can be very problematic when
you're initially sorting it out so sooner rather than later is always
good if you're likely to need it in the future.
Click to expand...

And creating a unique SID for each machine is done how? Heck that's just the
biggest problem. What if it is a non-VLK requiring activation?

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my
declining years to the composition of a textbook which shall focus the
whole art of detection into one volume." - Sherlock Holmes
 
In Adnan Rafik had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
ok thnx.

Once I've the image OS and SYSPREP then how do I do it on the
destination computer.
Click to expand...

Scroll down/up and see Shenan's response in this same thread for some
methods of the "how" else see here and consider any one of a number of third
party disk duplication tools:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/duplication.mspx

Really, there has been some potentially bad advice in this thread - use
Sysprep else do 'em all manually.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my
declining years to the composition of a textbook which shall focus the
whole art of detection into one volume." - Sherlock Holmes
 
Adnan Rafik had this to say:
I've 10 new desktop (white box). I want to install fresh
installation of Win XP.
what is the best and proper way ?
Click to expand...
Sysprep and an image...

Start here I suppose:

How to use the Sysprep tool to automate successful deployment of
... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302577

If it is only ten and you're new to this then, well, either be
glad to learn on a small amount or give up and do them all one by
one but you'll want to know about sysprep eventually.
Click to expand...
If the 10 machines are all the same hardware you wont need Sysprep,
any imaging package like Ghost or Altiris will do the trick nicely
without you having to worry about sysprepping first. Well worth the
time to work sysprep out though if you're planning on moving to
multiple hardware platforms, and it can be very problematic when
you're initially sorting it out so sooner rather than later is
always good if you're likely to need it in the future.
Click to expand...
And creating a unique SID for each machine is done how? Heck that's
just the biggest problem. What if it is a non-VLK requiring
activation?
Click to expand...

NewSID from Sysinternals.
GhostWalker that comes with Symantec Ghost.
Altiris SIDgen.

As for the activation - yeah.. That can be a pain.
 
Galen said:
In Hunter01 had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:


And creating a unique SID for each machine is done how? Heck that's just the
biggest problem. What if it is a non-VLK requiring activation?
Click to expand...


Shit, back in the old days we used to use ghostwalk, sidchange and a
number of other freely available 2 second apps (although ghostwalk was
part of the Symantec Ghost suite so that one at least I suppose was not
freely available, we just happened to use it before we made the mistake
of turfing it and moving to the vomit known as zenworks, and soon after
liberated ourselves by dumping that and moving to the beauty of Altiris).

Shitty way to do it with multiple hardware platforms, that's where
sysprep comes into its' own, but pretty damn pointless when you've got
common hardware across the board and freeware to change the SID for you.

By the way, we do use VLK, we just changed the SID's manually anyway for
cleanliness sake, prior to Altiris and using Sysprep. And I was speaking
from the perspective of my environment, but I'll admit I never had to
worry about activation so didn't take that into account, which I probly
should've considering that a 10 PC install ain't likely to have volume
licensing.
 
Galen said:
In Adnan Rafik had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:


Really, there has been some potentially bad advice in this thread - use
Sysprep else do 'em all manually.
Click to expand...


Bollocks, we lasted for years on mass rollouts (speaking hundreds at a
time with less than 10 on the deployment team) with single
non-sysprepped images for common hardware platforms enmass without ever
going near sysprep. We just have such a diversified amount of hardware
platforms now that it's become more viable to have a sysprepped image.

I'd agree with you completely from a purist stance that this is the best
way to go, and is the most viable way to go if you have a lot of
different hardware, but from a beancounters stance you'd be better off
with a single non-sysprepped image that fits the hardware if you have a
single platform, much quicker to image, much more effective and much
less work.

Do 'em all manually is just pure stupidity. Went out with the darkages.
 
In Hunter01 had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
Shit, back in the old days we used to use ghostwalk, sidchange and a
number of other freely available 2 second apps (although ghostwalk was
part of the Symantec Ghost suite so that one at least I suppose was
not freely available, we just happened to use it before we made the
mistake of turfing it and moving to the vomit known as zenworks, and
soon after liberated ourselves by dumping that and moving to the
beauty of Altiris).
Shitty way to do it with multiple hardware platforms, that's where
sysprep comes into its' own, but pretty damn pointless when you've got
common hardware across the board and freeware to change the SID for
you.
By the way, we do use VLK, we just changed the SID's manually anyway
for cleanliness sake, prior to Altiris and using Sysprep. And I was
speaking from the perspective of my environment, but I'll admit I
never had to worry about activation so didn't take that into account,
which I probly should've considering that a 10 PC install ain't
likely to have volume licensing.
Click to expand...

*chuckles*

If they use sysprep there's no need for third party SID tools. ;) And yeah,
10 PCs there is probably no VLK... I suppose they could then manually
activate and swap the keys at the prompt but that's a lot like work as well.
Even with VLK you'd still want to change the SID's otherwise all sorts of
funny things happen when you network 'em. (Poll through the groups and once
in a while you'll see some real gems pop up.)

Personally yeah, I'd probably cheat for my own use. If it were a job site
then no because there might be someone coming behind me who would anticipate
that I'd done it according to the book. Hmm... It makes me think of job
security by obscurity... Ah well...

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my
declining years to the composition of a textbook which shall focus the
whole art of detection into one volume." - Sherlock Holmes
 
In Hunter01 had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
Bollocks, we lasted for years on mass rollouts (speaking hundreds at a
time with less than 10 on the deployment team) with single
non-sysprepped images for common hardware platforms enmass without
ever going near sysprep. We just have such a diversified amount of
hardware platforms now that it's become more viable to have a
sysprepped image.
I'd agree with you completely from a purist stance that this is the
best way to go, and is the most viable way to go if you have a lot of
different hardware, but from a beancounters stance you'd be better off
with a single non-sysprepped image that fits the hardware if you have
a single platform, much quicker to image, much more effective and much
less work.

Do 'em all manually is just pure stupidity. Went out with the
darkages.
Click to expand...

Ever wonder what's going to happen when you're outsourced, retired, or let
go, or quit? They're going to get shiny new techs in there with books that
are barely dog-eared and still clean. While that does have some appeal when
you think about them running about with brand new toolboxes where
everything's still sorted neatly (and spare jumpers aren't mixed in with odd
screws in a baby food jar because they were too tired to separate them after
a 36 hour "day") rooting around looking for non-existent images - that
doesn't bode well for you if you still have stock options nor for the
company. (Hopefully the threat of doing 'em all manually will prompt them to
use sysprep which, if for no other reason, is a skillset they should have
and may well need if they end up at a different company.)

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my
declining years to the composition of a textbook which shall focus the
whole art of detection into one volume." - Sherlock Holmes
 
Galen said:
In Hunter01 had this to say:


*chuckles*

If they use sysprep there's no need for third party SID tools. ;)
Click to expand...


Dead right, but any clown can run a third party SID tool, someone needs
to spend some time to get a good sysprepped image going, and also it
wont be as clean as a single purpose-built image for a single hardware
platform. Not to mention that dumping said image and giving it a quick
sidchange is a ****-load quicker than dumping the image and waiting for
sysprep to do it's thing and strip a lot of your customisations at the
same time. No problems when you've got Altiris, we can re-instate the
customisations that Microsoft in its' infinite wisdom has felt the need
to remove, but for a 10 PC customer it's extremely doubtful he has
either Altiris or the staff to dedicate time to fixing these problems
(or to be honest, with 10 PC's, the need to **** with any of that in the
first place when he can set up a "perfect" image and just
ghost/driveimage/whatever it across the rest and give them a quick
sidchange).

And yeah,
10 PCs there is probably no VLK... I suppose they could then manually
activate and swap the keys at the prompt but that's a lot like work as well.
Click to expand...


Yep, that's why I backstepped, you'd have to weigh the pros against the
cons in that scenario, and I don't know enough about the hellish land
known as activation (**** Microsoft for penalising those that don't
pirate like they have with activation, thank **** my environment doesn't
need to deal with that persecution of the honest) to say which outweighs
which.

Even with VLK you'd still want to change the SID's otherwise all sorts of
funny things happen when you network 'em. (Poll through the groups and once
in a while you'll see some real gems pop up.)
Click to expand...


Rare, we had some clowns that didn't bother with that part (which they
were occasionally crucified for), but what really stuck in the craw is
when they pointed out that "the last 60 went out like that" and there
was never a hiccup from them, all on the same site, same subnet, all
authenticating to the same DC. Of course that was back in an NT server
land, but it's hard to crucify without showing a "see this is why!"...
We had to play nazi instead and just say "don't give a ****, just do it!"

Personally yeah, I'd probably cheat for my own use. If it were a job site
then no because there might be someone coming behind me who would anticipate
that I'd done it according to the book. Hmm... It makes me think of job
security by obscurity... Ah well...
Click to expand...


Actually I'd look at it (as you should) from the money perspective. What
does the client want. Value for money. What does the client need. A
working environment that ain't going to fall over. From the imaging
perspective if they've got a single hardware platform then you'd be
pretty remiss to **** around with sysprep when you could make a
"perfect" dedicated image for that one platform, image it out in about
half the time (don't need to wait for sysprep to do its' thing) and give
it a quick sidchange afterwards. Better product at the end (much
cleaner), and a quicker production time. And the quick sidchange takes
care of your one and only concern.
 
Galen said:
In Hunter01 had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:


Ever wonder what's going to happen when you're outsourced, retired, or let
go, or quit?
Click to expand...


I'll take that as a "well yeah, you're right, but I want to rip off the
client to justify my position".....

Sorry, I've got a bit of pride, and from first-hand experience with
Indian outsourcing, they'll need to improve about 5000% before they'll
come close to replacing any of us, and how ****ing rude to bum steer
someone who was asking for a bit of professional courtesy and advice in
a newsgroup, not like you were getting paid for it.

They're going to get shiny new techs in there with books that
are barely dog-eared and still clean. While that does have some appeal when
you think about them running about with brand new toolboxes where
everything's still sorted neatly (and spare jumpers aren't mixed in with odd
screws in a baby food jar because they were too tired to separate them after
a 36 hour "day") rooting around looking for non-existent images - that
doesn't bode well for you if you still have stock options nor for the
company. (Hopefully the threat of doing 'em all manually will prompt them to
use sysprep which, if for no other reason, is a skillset they should have
and may well need if they end up at a different company.)
Click to expand...


How old are you buddy? I'd hazard a guess I'm a tad older than you and
I'm still working, and every year we're getting new young blood on board
that we're training up. Your paranoia is over-riding your
professionalism. My mob used to, and still do, take pride in their
professionalism. The day we start trying to hedge our bets is the day
we're not doing our jobs properly.

On that day I'd rather walk out with a bit of integrity rather than
being a local version of the call-centre peanut recipients. All we've
got to separate us from them is our quality of service, if you want to
start acting like them, you better get ready to accept their pay,
because it's that sort of attitude that makes them viable.

****, I gotta remember to leave this newsgroup alone after a night at
the pub, I get pissed off too easily.....
 
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