RIS with Win2k Server for WinXP

[joerg]

Hello,

I hope you can help me.

We are exploring the RIS Server for deploying Windows XP.
For win2k prof. there are two options: creating a
unattended installation by risetup on the one hand and
creating images with Riprep on the other hand.

As Server we are using SBS2k sp3 in production and for
testing w2k server sp4.

I found several articles about applying the riprep version
for winxp, but we are looking for a risetup solution. The
hardware will change, and there are several different
apps, changing in future, so we want to use windows
installer for these application installations.

My Question in short: is there any way to use risetup to
deploy clean, hardware-independend winxp installtions?

thanks for your help,

Joerg

 

[NIC Student]

We deploy XP pro images with Win2K servers. The cd-based image works for
varied hardware, but you must add the drivers to the RIS installation on the
server if they are not installed when you use a regular cd to install the
os.

RIPREP images are good also, but you will need to make different images for
hardware with different HALs. IMHO, software other than hotfixes should be
deployed with group policy rather than with RIS. This allows you to patch
and update your software installations and makes them self-healing if users
want to uninstall them (or whatever).

RIS is a great solution but it does require some time when you add each
image to get the drivers working. It works well in most AD environments,
especially if your hardware is fairly consistant.

 

[joe ask]

thanks for your answer,

so, the XP pro image you are talking of in the beginning isn't the riprep
image? Is it the risetup image or a third type of image?

i thought a bit about the deployment, and here are my results:

it's a small environment: about 15 pc's
we don't want to rollout xp to the old pcs, just to the new ones, and we
want to minimize the installation time.
The new PC's arrive at about 1-3 in about 1-2 month, so we can't use
excactly the same pc's every time.
We try to get similar pc's, and the hal will be the same each time.
Differences will be the VGA and perhaps the ide-driver.

The software used is ms office and some non msi packaged software.
Because we don't have special packaging tools, i think it is the best to
include this "legacy" software in the riprep image, and use the group
policies for office and servicepacks, and new software that is hopefully
deployable by grouppolicies.

You mentioned that additional drivers should be installed on the RIS Server.
I read that the RIS images shouldn't be touched at all. Do you have some
links for this topic?

joerg
(mcse)

 

[NIC Student]

When you set up RIS, you start with a cd-based image of WinXP. You can
slipstream that image with the latest service pack *before* creating the
cd-based image. You then run RISETUP and your image is created.

Next you image a machine and add all the "stuff" like legacy apps, hotfixes,
special desktop (can you say NO MSN!!?), etc. Then you run RIPREP to make
that image. The RIPREP image relies on the files contained in the cd-based
image.

To update for a new service pack, you must do a RISETUP for a new
slipstreamed image and make new RIPPREP image. That's why we use some other
means to deploy SPs and hotfixes rather than mess with the RIS images all
the time which would become a full-time job. We use SUS for hotfixes and
roll out SPs with group policy.

15 machines is kind of borderline for a RIS setup, but it makes service
calls easy. Your tech says "will this take more than 30 minutes to fix?"
and if so, then the user gets a few image. No more hour-long struggles
because someone's Office installation gets hosed. Point the user's Office
apps to their user share with group policy so their stuff is on a server.

I have a tutorial on adding extra drivers (mainly for newer nic drivers),
which can be found here:

(look at the OEM driver - Intel section)

http://www.mvps.org/serverstuff/

 

[joe ask]

Thanks again for your help.

i manage to create an initial xp risetup image. the problem was the cd i
used last time. I was using a MSDN "multi content" installation dvd, and
some files expected to be there aren't there.

I also successfully installed some additional pcs with this image,one using
the bootdisk tool and one using an onboard pxe rom.

One Question came up during testing:

I have some pc's with nics not supported by the ris boot disk (onboard
sis900). it's not pxe enabled, no bios options, nothing (its an asus
p4s533-mx board).

To get it booting i tried several disk-rom images from the etherboot
rom-o-matic.(http://www.rom-o-matic.net/) I made some experiences here
during a linux thinclient project. the rom-o-matic creates network boot roms
for the linux-etherboot project, but pxe support seems to be missing.
The p4s533 boots and then keeps looking endlessly for the bootimage. i tried
to check bootp, dhcp and tftp options, but couldn't find anything. i thought
that RIS uses dhcp to send information about the ris server and ris
bootimage to the client, but on the dhcp-server no options are findable.
Only the address scope i defined by myself. Seems curious to me. But i
don't know nothing about pxe. i even found the rom-images on a driverdisk
for the sis nic. i tried to copy this rom-image to a floppy (using
rawrite32) but it doesn't work at all.

So my first question: is there any way to add the sis pxe-rom image to the
ris-bootdisk? (kb says no) or do you know any possibility to create a custom
bootdisk for this unsupported nic?

If it doesn't work, we will change to supported nics, but it seems to be a
nice competition to get this working

Thanks for your time,

joerg

 

[NIC Student]

Hi joerg,

I'm glad you got things up and running for your tests. This article is a
good explanation of how DHCP and RIS interact during discovery:

Description of PXE Interaction Among PXE Client, DHCP, and RIS Server
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;244036

If the nic isn't PXE compatible then we have a problem. You can install a
different nic for the installation but that almost defeats the purpose of
RIS - quick imaging.

I don't know of an answer for your SIS nics other than to contact SIS and
see if there is a ROM flash that will help. Or contact ASUS about a
motherboard BIOS update. Most times you are out of luck with non-pxe
on-board nics unless you grab another nic and use that with a boot floppy
from MS or a 3rd-party.