RIS mega-confusion, help needed

binarysoul

I have RIS on Windows 2003 Enterprise and I was able to install XP through an image created by RIS. I use a virtual environment using MS Virtual PC 2007.

Sybex book tells me to install a reference PC and then connect to RIS server and run RIPrep.exe. This file is located on the RIS server under /I386/Admin folder. After I go through it, it asks me to stop about 15 services. I actually did that and it told me to close Virtual Machine.

I'm lost, honestly all these remote install tools are very similar and overlap, so any clarification would be helpful.

NozzaC

I did my practice on a Virtual PC 2007 network and it worked fine.

You're not trying to use your host machine as the reference machine are you?

If I remember correctly you don't HAVE to stop all the services do you? You can keep some open if they are going to interfere with VPC's working.

When you say "I'm lost, honestly all these remote install tools are very similar and overlap, so any clarification would be helpful" what exactly do you want to know?

binarysoul

When you put sysprep, RIS, ripprep, risetup, answer files and etc together, it can get confusing, but hopefully it will make sense.

NozzaC

yeah i know what you mean. It certainly helps to try them all out - as you are doing. I actually use my RIS image to create new machines in my lab so it does appear to be vaguely useful at least.