XPE Deployment, General Questions

[Guest]

Hey XPe guys

I work with a team of software developers who designs software for
machinery. We recently purchased licensing for XPe because we figured we can
lock down the OS so that the machinery software won't close and workers would
hack anything to get online or whatever. But there is an interesting
problem. Here's the deal.

The machines are locked down, no access to the hard drive, because they are
ruggedized. There are no external ports except for usb, and keyboard, and
ethernet. There are no cd rom drives or floppys.

We run a win2k3 server so that supervisors can take control of the system
from their desktops, and those desktops run xp, but we use AD and group
policy to lock them down.

My question is, being that there is no CD or Floppy, and Not USB bootable,
what is the best way to get the OS on the system? Keep in mind, the plant is
almost a mile long, we really don't want to have to go to every machine
locally every time we want to do a software upgrade or something? Will RIS
on 2k3 work? Are there any other options? I need something very thorough in
explanation, not technical, more like a how-to. I'm not interested in all
the inner workings of XPe only how to get it where it needs to be..

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[KM]

Mark,

You said nothing about how you are going to prepare all target machines - at factory or on site.
What are they running now? What remote management access you have there now?
This would be important to you to make the XPe deployment process as easy as possible.

I can hardly find time right now to put much details in my reply but here is some places you can start reading from:

For the deployment options, see XPe documentation:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/xpehelp/html/xeconRun-TimeImageDeployment.asp

For the device device remote management you have these options available on XPe:
- DUA. A lightweght agent that will allow you to deploy any update (files/registry) over http or locally and run scripts.
Requires a web server.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/xpehelp/html/xeconDeviceUpdateAgent3.asp
- SUS (Windows Update Service) - XPe/SP2 only. MS system updates only. Requires a SUS server.

- SMS. A complex remote management solution. Easy to manage devices and any updates. Scripting supported. Requires a SMS server.
http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/downloads/2003/adclient.asp

- SDI approach. You can do OS entire updates using RAM SDI boot from CD-ROM, USB flash disk, or etc. You can even setup a Remote
Boot screnerio to update the image on the devices remotely (will require PXE suport).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/remboot/html/xpconRemoteBootOverview.asp

- Any 3rd party remote management solution or just manual updates.

This article may be also helpful to you:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnxpesp1/html/tchBldSrvDev.asp (high level stuff)

KM

 

[Guest]

KM-
Basically, I'm asking, currently we use Remote Installation Services from
the windows 2000 Server, and install windows XP Pro, with an unattended file,
and then use VNC to connect to the local machine. Is there a way we can do
this with embedded?

Also
Each Machine we use needs a different IP address and computer name can this
be done with one image, or do we have to have an image for each machine?

THANKS KM

 

[KM]

Mark,

No easy way to do that with RIS. I have tried that a long time ago and ended up hacking many RIS screens - it did not work well for
XPe images.

However, using Remote Boot Service from XPe may help you to create similar remote installation environment.
I'll post this link again as it will give you an idea how the RBS works:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/remboot/html/xpconRemoteBootOverview.asp

Instead of VNC you can use RDP technologies that are supported by XPe.
Or you can integrate VNC or any other Remote Management tool (Remote Admin, or MS SMS client, or etc.) in to your image and have a
remote way of managing your device. this has been done many times by many of us here for various projects.

With regards to the IP addresses and computer names. You are looking for XPe System Cloning Tool. Please read the info from this
link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/xpehelp/html/xeconCloning.asp. The Cloning Tool will allow you to set up unique
computer names and SIDs.
How you set IP addresses will be up to you (Target Designer does not allow you to do that) but you can easy accomplish it with some
netsh scripts that automatically setup a unique IP address following your desired algorithm (based on your device network,
manageability and environment characteristics).
Or (if acceptable on your network) turn on DHCP client in the image and you are done.