Remote Installation Service

spicc7

I was able to successfully install Windows 2000 PRO using RIS (after much fiddling).
My only question after doing it though, is why would anyone want to?
Why not just use an image or create an answer for a CD based install.

I mean, you have to be at the machine anyways to configure the Boot Diskette or he BIOS to boot from LAN. Somebody help me out here?

pandimus

Imagine you have 2000 new computers from 10 different vendors.. I/E GAteways, Dells, compaq, CDW.

YOu have to get all these computers installed

IF you have an image, then all the computers would have to be these same.

If you use a CD, you would need to have enough cd's for all these computers, then you would have to have someone log it on to the network, bla bla bla....

If you use ris, you could put the machine on the desk it is going to be on, turn it on, and type in your administrator password and walk away..

mikiemov

Some machines we use, either a) dont have cd-roms due to being disabled to prevent unauthorised software install or b) they are faulty

RIS is therefore one of the best solutions !!

spicc7

Thank you both for your answers.

From your answers I gather, RIS is beneficial when you have a new network with several computers having differering configurations/hardware (i.e HAL). And as Mikie said when there using a CD-ROM isn't possibly.

I guess I was thinking if you already had an existing network - you probably wouldn't want to bog it down with the RIS install; unless you plan on working late!

I just wanted to also point out, that if I hadn't done the RIS install for myself, it would still be a mystery as to how certain things get done.
One thing that tripped me was that my NIC wasn't on the 2000 list of supported NICs; I had a hard time getting the RBFG.EXE utility that comes with 2003 Server - No thanks to Microsoft.

aznluvsmc

In practice RIS is not used at all. Imaging is by far the quickest solution which is why most companies elect to get computers from the same manufacturer. In a large scale enterprise solution you may even see Altiris being used.

You will notice that MS does not stress RIS installation on the exam because they also know it is not used much and I highly doubt they use it in their own environment.

Lexxdymondz

Though MS does stress RIS on the 217 test, and there is alot of it (from what i've seen while studying). Even if you had an existing network you would want to use RIS for a mass client roll out for ease.

I guess I was thinking if you already had an existing network - you probably wouldn't want to bog it down with the RIS install; unless you plan on working late!

Yes this is true RIS does take up quite a bit of network bandwidth but you can also prestage client computers to use RIS and have more than one RIS server on the network seperated by subnets in large enviroments. These clients will only contact the RIS server on their subnet and reduce traffic across routers.

Who would want to roll out even 500 clients manually when you can use RIS???

aznluvsmc

Keep in mind that during a rollout, you also have to install applications onto those systems too. Do you want to walk to 500 computers and install company applications after deploying them with RIS? I am aware that applications such as Office can take advantage of GPO Software deployment but not all programs support that.

I'd rather use Ghost to make an image and then push that image to the computers over the network. I can include applications in those images. This is how rollouts are done in practice.

There are a lot of features implemented in Windows that just isn't practical. If Microsoft got rid of these then, maybe they can lower the price of their OS.

Sartan

I beleive RIS to be rather unpractical, to sum it up briefly.
Nobody uses it.
The last exam I took from Microsoft had a situation in which RIS was used to deploy 30 Windows 2000 Servers. <-- Why the hell would you do that, it's just stupid!
RIS is neat when you actually do it for the first time, and not just read about it though :P "Gee, it really worked"

Lexxdymondz

You do know that using RIPrep you can create custom images where the applications are already installed. Wouldn't that be easier than going to every machine and connecting to a share to install your image?

Free Range

RIS is great, just used it on the current project I am working on which put new operating system on over a thousand PCs.

Pavlov

Whether or not you like it or will use it is not up for debate on the Microsoft exams

Know what it does and how it works - Microsoft WILL ask you about it on the 215 exam a smidge and you'll definitely see it again when you take 217. It's one of their new tools, so naturally they will want to test you on it

corey_mack1

I would disagree with the assessment of RIS being only for first deployments. How about this scenario. You have a user who was surfing the internet and click on something they should not have. Now they have every spyware and adware possible.
Your choices are as follows:
1. Help Desk Guy taking 2 hours to trouble shoot it.
2. Help Desk Guy taking 3 hours to load machine from scratch.
3. Help Desk Guy taking 2 hours ghosting an image to the machine, making necessary changes and loading department specific applications.
4. Tell the user to reboot their machine hit f12, select the image and reload the machine in 20 minutes. When it is finished machine account in domain is still valid. All software is installed, I only had to maintain a standard configuration build based on department, not machine type, and the user next time will not be calling me to fix it as they will now know how to do it themselves.

I'd pick option 4.

skully93

RIS is home of some of the more confusing questions I've come accross.

I don't know of that many people that used it in the field, and even fewer that could do it without a tutorial, even with the cert.

However, it's still likely that if for some reason you ended up deploying to a really big number of computers in several locations that it would be a good idea, at least in theory.

I would much rather use Ghost most of the time, but there are plenty of times where that just isn't possible. The tiniest thing can make a ghost image totally useless. We had 2 dells, same make model, etc. One had an IDE drive, the other SATA. The image is useless for SATA.

Isn't that fun?

Ricka182

corey_mack1 wrote:

You have a user who was surfing the internet and click on something they should not have. Now they have every spyware and adware possible.
Your choices are as follows:
1. Help Desk Guy taking 2 hours to trouble shoot it.
2. Help Desk Guy taking 3 hours to load machine from scratch.
3. Help Desk Guy taking 2 hours ghosting an image to the machine, making necessary changes and loading department specific applications.
4. Tell the user to reboot their machine hit f12, select the image and reload the machine in 20 minutes.

I'd run Ad-Aware, and keep the user in step with regular beatings.

rossonieri#1

skully93 wrote:

... One had an IDE drive, the other SATA. The image is useless for SATA.

RIS only works with the same storage type - except for the PnP.