FYI: VMWare + W2k3 + RIS - NIC Issue

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Thought I'd post this here as info for anyone using VMWare player/server etc that is setting up a lab with 2k3 and RIS.

When you try and deploy a RIS image to another VM it's boots from the network ok but at the text part of the OS install you get the error "The Operating System Image You Selected Does Not Contain the Necessary Drivers for Your Network Adapter. Try Selecting a Different Operating System Image. If the Problem Persists, Contact Your System Administrator"

After some faffing about I sussed it out - you need to add the NIC drivers to the image - these are included in the VMTools - mount and browse the ISO and extract the drivers from \program files\VMWare\VMWare Tools\Drivers\vmxnet\win2k

Copy the inf and sys files to RemoteInstall\Setup\Language\Images\Dir_name\i386

Create '\$oem$\$1\Drivers\Nic' under i386 - change Nic to something more descriptive for your card if you like but keep it under 8 chars

Copy all the conents of the VMWare tools folder from before to your new directory (\$oem$\$1\Drivers\Nic)

Add the following to the file ristndrd.sif - found under i386 and i386 \templates

DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore
OemPreinstall = yes
OemPnpDriversPath = Drivers\Nic

The 'OemPreinstall = yes' line will probably already be there, don't duplicate it, just change it to yes

Now stop and restart the RIs service

Code:

net Stop binlsvc
net Start binlsvc

You sholuld now be able to roll out your image

Further details in the MS KB HERE

 

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Interesting Jock, thanks for posting.

 

Useful info if you have a problem with this, but I didn't when I tried it a while back. I was using a Physical Win2K3 server with a RIS server installed on it, and installing to a VMWare Workstation 5 client and had no issues when trying to boot from the NIC in the virtual machine. Could it be you were using an older version of XP? (I assume that's what you were trying to deploy via RIS).

 

Was using Xp with no SPs so could be that

 

Ahh yes, it probably was. I think when I was testing it I was using the version with SP2 integrated.

 

Thanks for the info.