XPe Mass Deployment

  • Thread starter Thread starter Luis
  • Start date Start date
L

Luis

Hi,

I'm trying to find a solution (without 3rd party software if possible)
to mass deploy a working XPe image to identical devices. The device
used to create the image and the devices we are trying to deploy to
are all identical.

So far I've tried to use RIS on Win 2003 server but have had no
success.

My only reference has been the MSDN library.

Can anyone please offer some information on how to accomplish this? Or
suggest other ways to mass deploy.
 
Without the use of third party tools, I don't believe that there is a "quick
and simple" way to mass deploy.

One way would be to boot each device to WinPE, and then run a batch file
that creates a network share and copies the image from the dev. system. The
batch file might look something like this:

net use * \\DevSys\share YourPassword /USER:YourUsername
xcopy z:* c:\

The downfall is that you'd have to put the batch file on a floppy disk,
meaning that you'd need a floppy disk and a WinPE CD for each system that
you'd like to mass deploy to. I guess it might not really be considered a
"mass deployment" solution, but maybe someone can come up with a better one.
 
Hi,

i use WinPE + RIS with a little script that :
- create the partition
- format ntfs
- copy files
thats all
and it work fine
bye
 
KM,

I'm not remote booting. I'm building multiple boxes for clients.
Looking for a quicker way for mass production of a working image to
new devices that will have identical hardware and then be loaded with
propietary software for their networks.

Regards,

Luis, FrontPorch Communications.
 
James,

What 3rd party tools do you know of that would make it "quick and
simple" through a network boot? If possible. The devices that we are
shipping will not have CD-ROM or a Floppy drive.

Regards,

Luis, FrontPorch Communications.
 
Remote Recover from Winternals would be one, but that one requires the
target to have a floppy drive to boot from. Basically, you create a client
boot disk for your target device, boot the device to the floppy, and then
the Remote Recover software on the development/deploy system sees the target
device and maps the disk to a network drive, enabling the ability to copy
files to the remote machine fairly easily. Unfortunately, it won't work for
you without a floppy drive. There's also Ghost, which I haven't really used,
so I don't know the details of how it works.

There's always disk replicator devices, but that can turn into a bigger
investment than you might want to make.
 
Richard,

Trying to load the OS via LAN and the device will store the OS on a
HD, but just got the word from Dev. that newer hardware will have the
OS on flash only and use the HD just for storage. The devices will
not have a Floppy or cd-rom.

I hope this answers you "type of media" question. If not let me know.

Regards,

Luis, FrontPorch Communications.
 
Luis,

Do the device have PXE support?
If they do, you can practically easy create a mass deployment scenario based on Remote Boot.
Just deploy over network a "small" XPe image that will takes care of partition, formatting and etc. of the device storage(s),
downloading the main image and burning it.
I've done something similar to that.

You can also deploy DOS image (using RIS) and do the same as above.
 
KM,

The devices do support PXE. Im very interested in the steps you've
taken to achieve this. Do you use a script of some kind? Similar to
the one a previous post described.
I am not a programmer so if it involves some script writing please
list the steps and I'll have someone from Dev. follow them in order to
get this working.
Also I'm very interested in the procedure for deploying a DOS image
from RIS; today, our lead programmer asked if that were possible and i
thought it was not so I'm very interested in hearing how you achieved
this.

Thank you so much for your help.

Best Regards,

Luis, FrontPorch Communications.
 
So you made an image of WinPE loaded with a script and pushed that up
to RIS?
It sounds almost to simple. Are there other steps needed? Do you
slipstream the WinPE first in RIS? Then download the image and
configure XPe and then push that image to RIS?

If you could please elaborate a bit more, i would greatly appreciate
it.

Thanks,

Luis, FrontPorch Communications.
 
Since the new hardware will have CF, why not simply copy the files over to
the CF while it's plugged into the development machine using a usb CF
Adapter. I heard there were production CF Writers that write to multiple
CF's at once but I had found one or seen one yet. (If someone knows of one
please let me know).

I create an image and test with Clone Component
After everything is tested out fine then make a Post FBA copy of the image
from the target machine.
I prepare the compact flash card, format and bootprep it
I simply copy this image to all my Compact Flash cards using a CF Adapter on
my Dev. Machine.
Plug the CF into the Targets and let them boot and run the final FBA.

There might be better ways but this seems to work for me.

Richard
 
Hi Luis,

No, ....
Install your WinPE in your RIS server ... so that you can PXE boot to
your RIS server and start WinPE (see 304992)
Than you can create a partition on your computer using diskpart, and
format it. Then Xcopy all your image !
Restart .... and FBA run
it is simple
Bob
 
Luis,

My steps will unlike help you (very custom project) but in general all the scripts used were .bat's.
So, it should be really easy to implement. Just make sure that you:
- create working SDI image with network support
- SDIMgr in the image and sdiaut.dll registered there
- have a server share accessible from the SDI image downloaded on the device
- Main image (in SDI format too, for instance) on the share

Then you:
- boot the device remotely with the "small" SDI image that supports network
- prepare the device local media (partition, format, etc.) with Resource Kit tools, your own utilities, or a bunch of free tools
from Internet that allow automation. I'd use diskpart/format.
- expand main SDI file from the network server share directly to the local device storage using SDIMgr
- change boot.ini to boot locally
- shutdown the device.

Then the device is ready. You can even change RBS server database file (.ini) to remove the device from the list or assign
abortpxe.com boot program to the device MAC. It may be needed if you want to reboot the device in local image aborting PXE.
 
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