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Lee Wilbur IT Solutions A service of Multiverse Enterprises Inc. |
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Lee Wilbur IT Solutions A service of Multiverse Enterprises Inc. |
Installing
Windows Deployment Services (WDS)
on Server 2008
With an example XP image
in 40 Easy Steps
(Really, they're easy - mostly 2-3 sentences with lots of pictures!)
Introduction
Windows Deployment Services is an included role in Windows Server 2008.
It essentially replaces Remote Installation Services (RIS) found in 2003 and 2000. (WDS is also
available for Server 2003; it is included in the Windows AIK and in Windows Server 2003 SP2).
Windows XP, 2003, 2003 R2, Vista, 2008, 7, and 2008 R2 can all be imaged and deployed using ImageX and WDS. Logically (though it would be unsupported by Microsoft and has not been tested or verified by me) because these are file based images, any operating system that can be run from an NTFS partition can be deployed using this WDS.
Windows Deployment Services images use the Windows Image format (WIM). This format is a file based image, not a sector or bit-for-bit copy of the disk. When capturing an image, ImageX and WDS know automatically not to capture certain files, such as the pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys, CSC (offline file cache) and a few other otherwise unique to the install locations and files. This, combined with a good compression rate using the "fast" compression option can result in a 30 GB install dropping to 8 GB or so in the image. In addition, as a file based image, it can image right back to the local hard drive obviating the need for an external disk to store the image you are creating. Finally, depending on where you are saving the image to or restoring from, the process can be very quick - I've restored basic XP images in under 10 minutes.
If you review the Microsoft documentation, it seems overwhelming, but in practice, you can configure and install a WDS server in about 20-30 minutes. Once done, adding images and enabling imaging via network is very easy and fast. Further, because ImageX and the WIM format are file based images, you can create images right back to the C: drive and re-image a machine without formatting and erasing everything. Or course, you still have the option to if you want or need to.
An important item to note: While WDS can provide a network boot and image capture routine, it requires you image to a local disk (typically USB or internal disk). This helps ensure an image doesn't become corrupt should the connection to a network drive fail during imaging. Upon completion, you have the option to upload the image to the WDS server.
Getting Started Requirements
Lets begin:
1. Open Server Manager and expand the Roles tree as illustrated below. In the right pane, click on Add Roles.
2. In the Add Roles Wizard that appears, place a check in the checkbox for Windows Deployment Services and click Next. (In the image below, you see Server Roles highlighted on the left. If you have Before You Begin highlighted, click Next to reach the page of the wizard referenced below - and you can optionally click the check box Skip this page by default to, as suggested, skip that page whenever you add a role in the future).
3. The next page of the wizard displays introductory information and notes regarding installing and configuring Windows Deployment Services. Once you have read through the information, click Next to continue.
4. The next page of the wizard displays the services that will be installed. Since this is your first Windows Deployment Server, both the Deployment Server and Transport Server roles must be included (the Deployment Server requires the Transport Server). Click Next.
5. The wizard displays a summary page requesting your confirmation. Click Install to confirm or < Previous to go back and make any necessary changes.
6. The Installation Progress page does not display much useful information as Windows installs Windows Deployment Services. In creating this documentation, I found the progress bar at about 15% for a minute or two, jumped to where you see it in the graphic below for about a minute or two, and then moved on the Installation Results page.
7. After the installation completed, the wizard displayed the Installation Results page. In total, the installation my system took approximately 2-3 minutes. Your results may vary depending on server load and capability. Click Close to close the wizard.
8. Return to Server Manager – you should now see Windows Deployment Services listed under the installed Roles.
9. As you can see, the Windows Deployment Services role provides a view of service status and events related Windows Deployment Services, a link to the command line utility, WDSUtil.exe. You can use WDSUtil to configure WDS, and links to resources and support for using WDS.
10. Click on your Start Menu and navigate to Administrative Tools and then select Windows Deployment Services from the list. If prompted by User Account Control (UAC), click Continue. The Windows Deployment Services Administrative Tool should appear similar to the graphic below. Note that when you expand the Servers list in the left pane, there is an exclamation mark next to the server name and in the right pane, it explains that Windows Deployment Server not yet configured
11. Right click the server name and select Configure Server (as indicated in the graphic above). A wizard appears and begins the process of walking you through the basic WDS configuration. The first page of the wizard is below. Click Next to begin the Wizard.
12. The second page of the Wizard requests a location to store your images. I strongly recommend you DO NOT accept the default C:\RemoteInstall path. Depending on your environment, you could have many images and the image sizes are often at a minimum 2-3 GB and often much more. Your WDS server should have a dedicated partition or RAID array to store your images on and considering just how large these things can get, I would typically suggest NO LESS than 100 GB. You CAN move these later, but large files take a while to move and it's generally better to do things right the first time. In the graphic below, I have selected W:\Images as my storage location - W: is the drive letter I assigned to a 300 GB hard drive which is dedicated to imaging. If the path you entered does not exist, it will be automatically created (provided the drive letter exists on an appropriate drive type). Click Next to proceed to the next page of the Wizard.
13. On the Wizard's third page, set the PXE Server Initial Settings to either Respond only to known client computers or Respond to all (known and unknown) client computers.
You should generally select Respond only to known client computers - this option requires that you pre-configure Active Directory or use WDSUtil.exe to appropriately define by MAC address which computers WDS should permit to PXE boot. Details on how to pre-configure clients will follow later and can also be referenced by clicking the link on the bottom of this tab. Once you have made your selection, click Next. If you later want to change these settings, reference steps 23 and subsequently, 31 below.
14. The next page of the Wizard is a progress screen that show Windows Deployment Services Starting. While the hardware you are using can impact the time it takes for this to complete, typically, it shouldn't be more than 60 seconds.
15. The final page of the Wizard provides a checkbox to Add images to the Windows Deployment Server now. If you have existing .WIM images you would like to load, or a boot image, you can do so by leaving the box checked and clicking Finish. (Importing images is covered beginning at step 33 and since you can only import images through this wizard once, you should probably skip importing for now).
16. Once the service is running and configured you should be able to access the Server components and configure the Windows Deployment Service to deploy your images. Go back to the Server Manager and if it still indicates that WDS has not been configured, close Server Manager and re-open it or right-click on the server name and select Refresh. Expand the Windows Deployment Services, Servers, and your server name to see the list of sections available as illustrated below.
17. Define a boot image. The default Windows Server 7 or Windows 2008 R2 boot image – boot.wim – can be used here. You can add the image from the Windows 7 DVD or the Windows Server 2008 DVD, found in the sources folder on the DVD. (You can also use the one provided on the Vista or 2008 DVD. Note: the Windows Vista provided boot.wim not contain all the options available on the Server 2008 and later versions). Right click on the Boot Images section and select Add Boot Image. The Windows Deployment Services – Add Image Wizard should appear as illustrated below. Type the path to the boot.wim or use the Browse… button to locate it. Then click Next.
p1.jpg)
18. The next page of the wizard asks for a name for the image and the image description. If you use the Windows 7 x64 boot.wim, the values default to Microsoft Windows Setup (x64) in both text boxes. You can change these to whatever you prefer. For this example, we are leaving them as is. Click Next to continue.
p2.jpg)
19. The next page of the wizard summarizes your previous selections as illustrated below. Click Next to begin adding the selected image.
p3.jpg)
20. As the wizard runs, you should see the progress bar move. Depending on the size of the boot.wim and where you are loading it from, it should take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to complete.
p4.jpg)
21. Upon completion, the wizard should indicate success and the Finish button should be enabled. Click Finish to close the wizard.
Once completed, you may wish to repeat steps 12 through 16 to load boot images for other architectures (x86, ia64) - this example loaded only the x64 architecture boot.wim, which only newer systems will be able to use.
p5.JPG)
22. Return to Server Manager and the Windows Deployment Services role. You should be able to click on the Boot Images item under your server and see the image listed in the middle pane.
23. Once the boot image has been assigned, right click on the Server name – in this example, we right click on the server name – circled in red below – and select Properties.
24. Following with our example, a window titled SOL Properties appears. Change to the Directory Services tab, configure a format for the computer naming policy. More information on creating this can be found in the help from clicking on the link to More information about specifying the computer naming policy in the New client naming policy area. Then select a Client account location.
25. Change to the Boot tab. The settings here are optional, however, if you are not going to create a customized boot image or use more than one, you can configure the default image here.
26. Below we will only assign a default boot image to the x86 architecture. (I repeated steps 17 to 21 to add x86 after creating this document). Click the Select... button next to the line for x86 architecture under the Default boot image (optional) section. A new window should appear listing all installed boot images (this is why we installed the boot images first). Select the image you want to use as the default and click the OK button.
27. Once selected, the Boot tab now displays the default boot image(s) assigned to each architecture.
28. Click on the DHCP tab. Read this CAREFULLY. If you are using a NON-Microsoft DHCP server, you must check the second option, Configure DHCP option 60 to ‘PXEClient’. If Microsoft DHCP is used AND it is running from the WDS server, you must check both boxes for Do not listen on port 67 and Configure DHCP option 60 to ‘PXEClient’. Otherwise, leave these settings unchecked.
29. Click on the Network Settings tab. In most cases, the settings here can be left as they are. The one setting you may wish to change is the Network Profile. Depending on the network infrastructure, you may want to set this to 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps. Once set and/or verified, click the OK button to apply your settings and close the properties window.
30. The Client tab features settings for permitting unattended installations through customized configuration files. This is not needed for basic deployment and is not described here. It may be added at a future date as the automating process differs between XP and Vista and is quite extensive in capability with many options for automating setup.
31. The settings in the PXE Response Settings tab should have been configured automatically by the Configuration Wizard we ran in Step 11.
32. Create your OS image. Typically, great documentation with many details for customizing your build can be found in the Windows Automated Installation Kit (also known as WAIK or Windows AIK). Strictly speaking, you do not need to use the WAIK, but I strongly recommend you review it's content, especially if you are preparing to image a large number of systems. Creating your image involves installing a reference computer with the software, patches, and configuration settings you want, running sysprep (this is required to ensure the system's security and related information is unique; Sysprep "prepares" the reference computer by removing security information and the vital information that makes the system "unique" on a Windows network and returns it to a state that allows that needed unique information to be regenerated for each newly deployed image), and then creating an install image using a Windows PE boot CD and the ImageX or a Capture image loaded into WDS. These processes will be detailed later. As this tutorial continues, we’ll use an XP Pro image with Service Pack 3 and most patches installed as our image to deploy to a Virtual Machine running on Hyper-V and also on another Virtual Machine running on Virtual PC 2007. But before this can be done, the image must be loaded into the Windows Deployment Server.
33. To load the image into Windows Deployment Server, right click on the Install Images section (right above the Boot Images section we used before) and select Add Install Image. The Windows Deployment Services – Add Image Wizard should appear. If you have an existing image group, you can select a group to place the image in there or you can create a new group. As we have no pre-existing group, we create a new one and use the name “Workstations” for now. Then click Next.
p1.JPG)
34. On the next page of the wizard type the path to where you stored your install image or use the Browse… button to locate it. Once entered, click the Next button.
p2.JPG)
35. The next page of the wizard displays all the images available in the selected .wim file. If the .wim file contains multiple images and you do not want to use/make all of them available, uncheck the ones you do not want. You can uncheck the box to Use default name and description for each of the selected image and in so doing you will be provided the ability to alter them on the next page of the wizard. In this tutorial, we will NOT do this so the next page of the wizard will NOT offer the ability to change the Name and Description. Once done, click the Next button to continue.
p3.JPG)
36. The next page of the wizard displays the summary of your selections and what will be done. Click Next to begin loading the image into WDS.
p4.JPG)
37. The progress bar moves as the image is loaded. Depending on the size, location, and number of images you are loading it should take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to complete.
p5.JPG)
38. Upon completion, the wizard should indicate success and the Finish button should now be available. Click Finish to close the wizard.
p6.JPG)
39. Return to Server Manager and the Windows Deployment Services role. You should see a sub group under Install Images with the title Workstations (as we created in the first step of the wizard). If you click on Workstations, you should see the image we just loaded listed in the list.
40. Congratulations! Your WDS server should be prepared and enabled to deliver a fresh XP installation to a computer in need of one! Simply boot the client system with PXE as the first boot item and follow the onscreen instructions.
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The information provided here is as accurate as possible, but still may contain errors. Use of the information provided is entirely at your own risk.
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Last Update: February 20, 2010