Archive for the ‘wds’ Category

Default Windows 7 Partitioning Brakes WDS Imaging…….Kinda…….

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

Another little Windows 7 nugget.

While installing Windows 7, I noticed that during the section for setting up the disk, some stuff was going on that I didn’t ask for (didn’t realise it at the time, took some trial and error to figure it out).

When you configure Windows 7 installation, the graphical section for configuring the disk will automatically create a 100MB primary partition for Bit Locker to use at a later stage. No matter what I did, I could not stop the GUI from doing this.

So I pressed on and agreed to the installation with the 100MB partition at the begining of the disk and the rest of the disk as a another primary partition.

Windows installs the *boot* files into the 100MB partition, and everything else into the second larger partition !

As I have mentioned before, I don’t think I am using WDS and imaging as Microsoft intended, but I essentially create a machine exactly how I want it and then sysprep and capture it using imagex. I can then reapply the image to another system of have it on the desktop in approx. 10-15mins all ready for use.

But this dual partition configuration breaks this. I believe to do it this way I would have to perform x2 sets of imagex capture and deploys :o( Not going to happen.

To get around this, I have to prepare the disk partitioning up front. The GUI disk section of the install will not alter the disk if it is already partitioned. I booted using a WINPE boot disk used ‘diskpart.exe /s ‘ and pass the following in a txt file as an argument

select disk 0
clean
create partition primary id=07
select partition 1
format fs=ntfs quick nowait
assign letter=c
active

This causes diskpart to select the first disk, wipe it clean and then create a primary partition using the whole disk, mark it as active and assign it drive letter C:

With the disk prepared in this way, I can now install Windows 7 (skipping over the GUI section of disk partitioning) and the boot files will be on the same partition as the system files. This can then be caught in a single image capture to .wim file which, when I then apply back to machines via WDS they will boot correctly.

Not sure of the implications this has should you then want to use Bitlocker at some later stage. Meh ! I don’t care, I don’t use Bitlocker right now :o)

Hope someone else finds this useful :o)

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WDS Deploying Windows 7…….The Wrong Way…….

Friday, April 16th, 2010

The 2nd Microsoft UK Techday I attended was on the subject of deploying Windows 7 within the organisation using WDS. This was the one I had really been waiting for as:

a) I’m pretty sure the way I am using WDS to deploy Vista is wrong, even though it works

b) Chris Jackson was presenting

Bit of history. One of the earlier tasks when I joined my current job was to replace the mix of XP and Vista desktops that were in use. I installed WDS and set about trying to figure out all the bells and whistles, but there are so many of them.

There is a ton of doc to read through, and walk through scenarios, but they are somewhat basic in that they only deal with creating and distributing a single image/buld to the desktop.

Here’s my problem, I have a mix of HP and Dell desktops. I also have different software requirements for different groups of people. Everyone needs Windows Vista and Office 2007. Devs need Visual Studio. Designers need the Adobe CS suite. I could not work out how to use a single boot and install image to achieve this.

So, I created multiple install images. Essentially, I setup each PC exactly as I wanted it for the desktop, then sysprep’d it with an answer file and capture it to an image. Then for each install image, I created a corresponding boot image and edit the startnet.cmd to wipe and prepare the disk, and then use imagex to apply the correct install image file to the machine.

So I have a ‘HP7900-install.wim’ and a ‘HP7900-boot.wim’. I also have a ‘HP7800-install.wim’ and a ‘HP7800-boot.wim’. Adding each xxx-boot.wim file to WDS lists it as an option on the PXE WDS boot menu, and when you select either boot image, the ‘startnet.cmd’ batch file will use imagex to apply the corresponding xxx-install.wim file.

I am fairly certain this is not how WDS was supposed to be used ?! There are currently x8 boot and x8 install images sitting on my WDS server.

The Windows 7 deployment demo at the UK Techday event unfrotunately has not cleared this up for me any further. The demo simply showed how to use a stock boot.wim and install.wim with an answer file to remove the prompts that occur during install. This much I had already figured out, what I hoped to discover was how to create a relationship between a boot.wim file and an install.wim file so I did not have to edit the startnet.cmd file each time.

I’ve just downloaded the WAIK 2010 and MDT 2010 applications and am going to install them and take a look at the new and improved documentation and scenarios and see if the answers lay within.

Anything I find out I will of course post here.

One thing I do already know is that if you are using a x64 bit version of Windows (7 or Vista) you have to install the x64 bit version of the WAIK. The x64 bit version cannot work on x86 (32bit) images !??? However, the x86 (32bit) version of WAIK can work on both formats. So when creating your build administration workstation, I would use x86 versions to ensure maximum flexibility.

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Posted in imaging, microsoft, wds, windows 7 | No Comments »