WINDOWS XP INSTALLATION USING WDS
Hi to all
In this article, I will explain the details about Windows XP operating system installation procedure by using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) technology. As a matter of fact, this article is somehow an continuation of the first two WDS articles (Implementation of Windows Deployment Services (WDS) on Windows Server 2008 R2) because i will explain some of the WDS management steps on the already installed WDS server. I recommend you to read those two articles before continue.
We used the install.wim and boot.wim files of Windows 7 DVD for installation and booting processes of WDS. By using these two images, a simple Windows 7 operating system installation can be achived. But when it comes to a Windows XP operating system installation, we have to do something different. The cause of this is, Windows XP installation files are not image files as they are in Windows Vista or Windows 7. Therefore, we have to create an image file of an already installed Windows XP machine and install the client machines by this image by using WDS. To do this, we have to create a Capture Boot Image on our WDS server.
To create Capture Boot Image, we expand the “Boot Images” folder in administrative interface of WDS and right click the image file that we added before (Figure 1). We select “Create Capture Boot Image” from the menu. I have to mention one thing here. There will not be anything happened to the original image by this action. Actually, we create a second image by using the original image. We finish the self-explanatory wizard and by filling the checkbox at the last screen of the wizard, we add our new image into WDS (Figure 2).
Figure 1: Capture image creation
Figure 2: Last screen of the capture image creation wizard
So, why we create “Capture Boot Image”? In RIS (Remote Installation Services), there was a tool called riprep.exe which is used to upload the installation files of an already installed Windows XP client machine to the RIS server. After installing a Windows XP operating system and all of the necessary softwares on a machine, we use this tool and upload the files to RIS. “Capture Boot Image” is doing the same thing actually. After the whole installation process of a client machine, we will create an image file of Windows XP machine on WDS server by using this image.
Lets start with the Windows installation process and the actions that we have to do before WDS image creation. First of all, we download all the necessary drivers of all the client machines in our organisation (in inf file format) because we will use the drivers in a later time (Figure 3). On the other hand, the processor architecture is important. We use the x86 architecture in this article (by the way, Windows Server 2008 R2 WDS has 64bit support). We will install the operating system via WDS on 32-bit clients. We install Windows XP operating system on the source client machine by using Windows XP CD (which i will not explain :) ). If any unknown device is recognized, we install the drivers of those and ending the operating system installation by installing all the Windows updates.
Figure 3: Drivers that are downloaded for client machines
There is one more thing that i want to mention here. We divide the disk into two partitions (Figure 4). We install the operating system into the first partition, format the second one (8GB in size) and leave it empty because we will use the second partition later. We install all the necessary software (i.e. Microsoft Office, antivirus software, Adobe Reader, Falsh Player etc) after the operating system installation (Figure 5).
Figure 4: Two-parted local disk
Figure 5: All the installed software
There is a cabinet file named deploy.cab in the Windows XP installation CD (under Support\TOOLS folder). We extract all the files in deploy.cab and copy them into the C:\Sysprep folder after creating it (Figure 6). We run the setupmgr.exe file (one of the extracted files) and finish the wizard with the “Sysprep Setup” option to create sysprep.inf file (Figure 7).
Figure 6: files in deploy.cab file
Figure 7: sysprep.inf file creation wizard
After the creation of file, we open it and add four more lines into it (Figure 8):
InstallFilesPath=”C:\Windows\Driver Cache\i386” – under [Unattended]
DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore – under [Unattended]
UpdateInstalledDrivers=Yes – under [Unattended]
DistFolder=”C:\Windows\Driver Cache\i386” – under [SetupMgr]
Figure 8: sysprep.inf file
Now, we copy the driver files under the necessary location. Therefore we right click to the folder C:\Windows\Driver Cache and open the properties of it. After pressing the Advanced… button, we fill the checkbox “Compress contents to save disk space” and press OK button two times. Now we can copy all the driver files under this folder. We do this because we will show the location to sysprep therefore when we install the operating system to another computer with a different hardware, setup will install the drivers from this location.
To show the driver location to sysprep, we use a third party software which is “Sysprep Driver Scanner”. We download it from www.vernalex.com/tools/spdrvscn/ site, copy the spdrvscn.exe file into C:Sysprep folder then run it (Figure 9).
Figure 9: Sysprep Driver Scanner tool
We write C:\Windows\Driver Cache into the “Search Path” and press Scan button. Another window appears and we press OK (Figure 10). We press Default, OK (Figure 11), Save, OK (Figure 12), Done, OK (Figure 13) buttons respectively.
Figure 10: The information window after Scan action
Figure 11: The information window after Default action
Figure 12: The information window after Save action
Figure 13: The information window after Done action
We open the sysprep.inf file and add the [SysprepMassStorage] at the end of file. After that, we open a command prompt and run the sysprep.exe –bmsd command from C:\Sysprep directory. By doing this, we let the command enter inputs under [SysprepMassStorage]. These inputs refer to the drivers we downloaded before (Figure 14).
Figure 14: The entries under SysprepMassStorage
Now we are ready to sysprep the client. For this purpose, we run the C:\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe file and press the reseal button (while “Use Mini-Setup” checkbox is selected). Also we select the restart from shutdown menu (Figure 15). We have to be careful about one more thing here. After restart, we have to boot the client through network (via WDS). To boot the machine through network, BIOS configuration must be correctly done.
Figure 15: sysprep window
During the restart (at the black screen) we press F12 buttonm and enter to the WDS interface. We have two options here. First one is the Windows 7 image that we added before. The second one is the Capture Boot Image that we created lately. We select the second one and press Enter button (Figure 16). After a whike, a wlecome screen appears. We press Next button and this opens the next screen which is “Directory to Capture” screen. In this screen, we select C:\ from “Volume to Capture” list. If C:\ is not selectable, it means we did something wrong about sysprep-ing. If this is the case, we have to do the sysprep again. Fortunately we did it right and we select C:\ from the list and enter a name and description for the image and press Next button (Figure 17).
Figure 16: Boot image selection screen
Figure 17: The disk partition that we capture
The Next screen is “New Image Location” screen. Here, we decide where we will create the image file. Now we can use the empty 8GB partition of our harddisk. By using Browse button, we show the D:\ partition for image creation and give a descriptive name with .wim extension to the image file. On the same screen, there are optional checkbox which let us to upload the created image to the WDS server directly. We do not fill the checkbox because we don’t want our image to get corrupted during network transfer. We will manually copy the image file to WDS server later. After we press the Next butto, the process begins (Figure 18). When the image is created, we press the Finish button and client machine is automatically restarted.
Figure 18: Creation of disk image
Because we did sysprep, a short setup wizard is started after restart. We enter the client machine name and administrator password here (Figure 19) and the machine is restarted again. Now we are at the logon screen of Windows XP. We logon to the machine therefore we can copy the created image to the WDS server. We write the full path for WDS image repository folder on the Run command prompt (\\mstipsrv01\reminst\Images\WindowsXP\) and copy the file (Figure 20).After restarting the WDS service on WDS server, the new image is listed under the WDS administrative interface. Lets install this new image by using WDS onto the same client machine.
Figure 19: Entering Computer name and administrator password
Figure 20: Copying the image file onto the WDS server
We press the F12 button after restarting the client and select the first choise from the image list. A “Setup is starting” screen appears and a language selection screen is opened (Figure 21). We choose Turkish here and press Next button. We enter the username and password as it is shown in Figure 22 and press OK. The next screen is the install image selection screen. We select WindowsXP_SP3 image that we added lately ve press Next (Figure 23).
Figure 21: Language selection screen
Figure 22: Username / Password screen
Figure 23: Install image selection screen
The next screen is the one that we decide the disk partition for installation. If we install the image without formatting the disk, all the old Windows files (if exists) will be preserved. But if a clean installation with formatting is needed, we have to click “Drive Options (Advanced)” and “Format” links respectively. The warning message states that all the data on the related disk will be erased (Figure 24). We press OK and Next buttons respectively and installation begins.
Figure 24: Warning message when format option is selected
Depending on the network speed, installation takes 25-45 minutes. The first phase is copying of files. After a restart, “Please wait while Windows is starting” screen appears and after 3-5 minutes, “Computer Name and Administrator Password” screen appears. We fill the necessary fields and press Next button. After a restart (again :) ), CTRL+ALT+DEL screen of Windows XP appears. Our new Windows XP client machine is ready to serve now.
This is it for now. See you next time. Bye for now.
Note: The beatiful blog of Ashley Hollis helped me a lot. Here is the link: http://ashleystechblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-create-hardware-independent.html
RSS feed for comments on this post.
