InvisibleMan

Do anyone deploy pc images using these ms methods, particularly WDS? Just reading up on it now & wondered if there were any issues you've found creating XP images with WDS?

Cheers

darlodge

Been using RIS it for years with no problems. really nice system to use. Biggest problem we ever have is getting RIS NIC drivers but Intel have these easy available.

WDS is mainly for vista deployment.

Darren

InvisibleMan

would seem wds is vista, need it for xp

Yeah its the positioning of these nic drivers that seem to matter. Can you image onto image to speed things up, as in have a base xp image downloaded to laptop then install updates, progs etc and then upload that to create a new updated image?

mike1210

AutoImage any use?

RogueSpear's Forums :: View Forum - AutoImage Discussion

scoobz72

I am sure you can create any image you want then upload/download any direction.

I dont know many RIS/ RAS soft which dont give NIC probs lol

There are a few Linux which are ok for NIC on RIS usage. I have not tried them but have been told they are ok.

darlodge

We regularly create new images to replace our older out of date images so yes you are correct InvisibleMan.

We have a lot of different images, one for each department. We basically built an image up from scratch, including all the windows updates direct from Microsoft Windows Update and then took an image of it. This is our base build.

From here on we install all our uncommon software and then take an image again for each department.

Once a image is deployed to a workstation the workstation is placed into a certain OU and our WSUS system (via GPO) then updates to the latest patches and fixes and you are good to go.

Darren

InvisibleMan

its been a couple of years since i did a ris image, i was told it didnt work properly if you add to an ris image and re-image. I think i may have been suckered and wasted a lot of time....

Anyways i worked out how to deal with the NIC drivers back then and now need to apply this same principle to image a sata harddrive laptop with xp using wds. However it would seem wds doesnt do xp so maybe i shouldnt waste my time on that and just concentrate on making vista images

scoobz72

As Darren said, if you build your image from the install disc, drivers & updates, then deploy via RIS. I have had many successes deploying images this way, i thought it was the only way to do it

darlodge

I've never had any problems re-rissing images. I.e. downloading an image, making a change and then uploading again. Just make sure you riprep it first.

It also depends how good your .sif files are. Ours includes all our domain settings, XP open licence code, joined to domain, sets admin passwords, sets screen res etc. etc.

If some of the settings are wrong or duplicated, you will have problems.

Darren

Sonic'

WDS is sooo slow as it has to download a 600 odd Mb Vista PE image to the PC

Much quicker using Ghost or similar but then there is the cost overhead of that

darlodge

Sonic, how much slower is WDS over RIS? I've always found RIS to be far faster than any other image software. I've downloaded a 4GB XP image in less than 30 minutes.

scoobz72

Network condition plays a big part i have found. When i RIS i always use it at 3-4am.

Gig ethernet with fibre optic support for most of our networks works a treat.
As long as we kick off the SAP users first lol

boomer

You are not kidding, and that is just to get the WinPE preboot environment working ready to deploy your Vista image (which will be circa 10GB).

Me, i stick to net-runna

mb

Sonic'

This was at a school, and they dont have the best networks going, well some do, but a lot don't

On saying that ive rolled out 30 images at once (10Gb image) using ghost in about 40 minutes

no pre boot image to download first either, or at least not a 600 mb one

Darlodge, never really used RIS, pretty much always used ghost, but then dipped out of desktop work for about 4 years

InvisibleMan

the most ive done is 10 laptops at once on a normal 100bit line in 12mins, so depending on your networking RIS is really fast. WDS is supposed to be easier & faster.