Windows XP Deployment For Noobs

Morning gods of I.T I hope all of you are well and are enjoying this glorious weather, Basically was wandering if you guys good give me some good sound knowledge in implementing some new procedures at work. Mainly because this would help me to expand my own knowledge and also benefit the charity greatly.

I want to speed up the process of installing Windows XP on our kit, I refurbish alot of laptops on a day to day basis and would like to make this alot more faster. So my goals are the following.

Setup Image to be capture
Capture Image
Automate the install

Now what is the easiest and fastest way to do this? bearing in mind that I am not using a volume liscense key and that each laptop has it's own unique product key. I also do not have a server setup so wont be able to use Server 2003 as I work for a charity and money is tight.

If would be most helpful if you guys could give me some pointers and if you use open source products that would be really beneficial.

Many Thanks Guys

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Comments

ally_uk

Can anybody help me out?

Many Thanks

ElvisG

The whole idea of making an image of a computer is for mass re-imaging of the same make / model with a VLK. If you are dealing with different laptop models and don't have VLK then stick to your process. Here is my process that we use at work and what you will need. I'm not saying this is the best just what I was showed.

File Server, Ghost, Sysprep, Universal Boot Disk

1) create a file server (doesn't have to be Windows Server OS, all you really need is a UNC)

2) get the OS how you want then use sysprep

3) put the ghost files in the UNC

4) reboot into UBD and push the image to the file server using Ghost

Now you have an image to load. Let's load the image!

1) boot the computer into UBD

2) Use the following command...

net use X: \\whatever\whatever (X: can be whatever because it's a virtual drive)
X: (type x: and hit enter to go into the virtual drive)
ghost (type ghost and hit enter)

3) point ghost where the image is and click open.

That is all there is to it.

:note:
This process works with XP and 7.

ally_uk

Thanks for the reply, so if I am not using a volume liscense key I can't do it?

mrmcmint

No you won't, if you are not using a Volume Licence key there isn't much available. Certainly not without having to change something on each imaged machine anyway.

If you put a retail key in, you will need to activate it and you can only activate a finite number of times hence they can'tbe re-used.

How are the OS's licenced anyway?

The only thing I think you could do is capture a wim image after sysprepping it, re apply the image to a different pc, and BEFORE you reboot it and go through the mini-setup, modify the sysprep.inf file with a different key - I would obviously test this first - just a thought.

ElvisG

You can but you will have to create a new image per key. Now on the other hand, if you work with the same laptops every so often then making an image would be handy. Then whenever these laptops came through again it would be a breeze to re-image. All you would do is boot the laptop with a UBD and point ghost to the image. Thirty minutes later your machine is good to go with an unattended Windows install.

Your system specs need to be the same and the key for the OS needs to be valid per build. This is just how the Windows key activation process works. I have no idea if this process is true with MACs or not. Maybe someone that works with MACs can reply about that.

mrmcmint

ElvisG wrote: »

You can but you will have to create a new image per key. Now on the other hand, if you work with the same laptops every so often then making an image would be handy. Then whenever these laptops came through again it would be a breeze to re-image. All you would do is boot the laptop with a UBD and point ghost to the image. Thirty minutes later your machine is good to go with an unattended Windows install.

Your system specs need to be the same and the key for the OS needs to be valid per build. This is just how the Windows key activation process works. I have no idea if this process is true with MACs or not. Maybe someone that works with MACs can reply about that.

Working with a charity and money being tight probably means ghost licences are not gonna happen

Hyper-Me

Wrong.

You could make an unattend installation using the Master OEM key that comes embedded in an OEM load of windows.

ally_uk

And what would the master oem key be for windows XP profiessional? Say if I had 60 Dell Latitudes each with different windows keys but the same model type and hardware could I prepare one get the drivers installed and then apply the service packs and software, create a image and then deploy it to the other 60 and use rock xp to then put in the right windows keys?? would that work?

Armor149

If you are looking at imaging and you have handful of the same make and model laptops, you might take a look at preserving the OEM Pre-activation when you reinstall XP.

Preserving OEM Pre-Activation when Re-installing Windows XP

down77

You may want to look into the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit to do what you are describing.

Link Here:

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

I've used the previous versions in the past (BDD, WDS, MDT, etc) and its not a bad offering for the price. This should provide the capability to create "golden builds" of systems and customize based on platform, application requirements, etc. and use the flexible licensing options that you require (OEM, VLM, Retail, etc). This is also a good time to get comfortable with WinPE and imagex as they are not hard to learn.

Just my 0.02