At the same time as making great headway into a centralized computing model and all the technologies around that (Hyper-V, RDS, App-V), Microsoft haven't stopped developing the old and familiar.
Remote Installation Services (RIS) has been upgraded and rename Windows Deployment Services (WDS). Coupled with MS Deployment Toolkit 2010 and the Automated Install Kit this becomes very appealing for management of your desktop and non virtualized server environment, especially in like of the imminent Windows 7 release.
The biggest downfall of ye ol faithful RIS was that any images were either tied to a hardware / driver set or relied on Sysprep to effectively reinstall the drivers.
WDS takes advantage of the WIM format, which is a file based image format. This makes replacing files within the image and during it's deployment an easy task. The upshot is that this solves all the annoying issues with RIS.
Short version; Anyone undertaking a large Windows 7 deployment should take a serious look at WDS first. This coupled with "Easy Migration", which is part of Windows 7, makes this a lot less scary an undertaking.
What you need to do;
Server setup
- Install Server 2008 R2 and the Windows Deployment Services role.
- Download and install MDT2010 and the AIK.
- Open up the WDS management console
- Add a deployment point where you want to store all your data
- Add a source OS (basically copy the DVD) via a wizard
- Add some apps you want to be available, also via a wizard - Office is a good example
- Create a Task Sequence for the above
- Add the new WDS server to your DHCP server (option 67)
- Right Click "Distribution Share" and click update
- Let it rebuild everything and it will create an ISO as part of this.
Burn this ISO (x86 or x64) to a CD for later.
Image Creation
- Use the above (via PXE boot) to create a nice clean Windows 7 install.
- Once you have a base install, go ahead and install everything you want on their. Acrobat, Office, etc
- Install the AIK on this as well
- Once you are happy reboot the machine to the ISO which you burnt earlier.
- From the CD browse to the AIK install and run IMAGEX to create a WIM of your gold image machine. (imagex.exe /compress max /capture d: d:\image.wim "gold image")
- Once this is done reboot back to Windows 7 and copy the new gold image to your WDS server.
- On the WDS server import a new OS and make the source a WIM image, yes, the one you just created. Be sure to provide the location of your Windows 7 source file during this.
Drivers and disparate hardware
- Heaven only knows what hardware you are using. Thanking the stars above I've only had to do this on newish HP hardware, but for those not that lucky, you have the ability to provide WDS with any drivers you like.
- It's easy enough, just takes some testing to see what hardware works with Windows 7 and what requires additional drivers.
Deployment time
- Now the easy part; Install and run the Windows 7 Easy Transfer utility to copy all the local user profile data (depending on your situation you might have roaming profiles or not care about local settings).
- Dont save the profile locally. It wont be there after the rebuild. Setup a server location to save all this to. (And it can be a huge amount of data)
- Next PXE boot and install Windows 7 via RDS <- wow, wasn't that easy
- After the reboot check your drivers are good and the expected applications appear.
- Use the already installed Easy Transfer to restore the profile you backed up earlier.
- Reboot, and you're done. Congrats.
The "step by step with pictures" wheel, that I wont be reinventing, is located here:
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