Sort of RIS based Question.

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One that actually works?

 

Just to clarify for you all how I manage to get round using Sysprep when cloning is that I set the image up with all of the software, printers, etc and then remove the pc from the network.

Removing it clears the need to worry about SID's.

I then ghost the machines usually takes about 10 mins to push out to 60 or so PC's with a 6Gb image and will manually name them and attach to the domain.

Yes manually attaching them takes a few minutes, but I'd only go around them any way to verify that they work!

 

Not quite, using the most basic function of RIS, you can install a clean copy of XP via the network. You can also automate the final part of the setup as well.

RIS does have it's limitations that make it less useful than ghost, most especially that it can only 'clone' the main boot partition of a PC.

I tend to use a combination of Ghost & NewSid for all of my cloning needs.

 

Thanks for the clarifications on my earlier comment Guys - suitably taken on board.

 

Thought I'd jump in here seeing as I've just covered the RIS/unattended install chapter in the MS press book.

My take is that RIS is an alternative to Ghost that can clone disk images. It requires an AD environment with DHCP and the NIC specifications(NetPC/PXE/boot disk that emulates PXE and the NIC must be PCI and supported by the Windows 2000 Remote Boot Disk Generator).

RIS can deploy complete images of OS/apps/settings the same way as ghost does, alternatively it can run setup from an XP CD in conjunction with an answer file/UDF.

So as a built in Windows 2000/2003 native tool that costs no extra to use why is everyone using 3rd party imaging apps like Ghost and Altiris?

I'm heavily involved in an XP rollout project at work at the moment. My job is to create regional operational Ghost images from master images for each hardware platform. We get sent the master images on DVDs (bootable).

I'll boot from DVD, install the master image, make the necessary regional changes and install/uninstall the apps and change settings for our particular UK office, when I'm happy it's ready to be deployed to all our machines I'll run sysprep /noreboot (I use the GUI sysprep) and image it up to out ghost server ready to deploy to the client machines.

We use sysprep because we don't want any user accounts, SID or anything else confusing things when it comes time to add to the domain.

In my previous job we had a purely Novell Netware back end and never used sysprep. We used ghost and booted the machines from a USB stick that had all the NIC drivers for all our machines. In my current environment we make 2 boot floppies for ghost 8, first boots up to PC DOS and holds the card driver(s) second has the ghost.exe

I've got disk imaging coming out of my ears at the moment at work and I use sysprep and sometimes newsid as well which is a great tool for those pesky machines that start having wierd unexplainable domain membership/network problems.

For the sake of the exam though I'm going to try and focus of the facts about doing it 'the MS way'.

I'll be setting up a RIS lab sometime this week so I'm looking forward to pulling my hair out- although I hope not too much as I'm going a bit thin on top as it is!

 

Sorry to disagree with you zimbo; partially that is. From the Migraw-Hill Osborne 2002 70-270, it is quoted: "Not all client computer do not have to have identical hardware. They must have the same Hardware Abstract Layer, but Plug and Play will handle any differences in the hardware in the systems."
I stumbled upon this info while reading this book. It wasn't mentioned in the MS Press nor the Sybex.

 

its not that difficult pete.. the hard part to me was getting my VMWare machine to boot from LAN!!
You will want to look at this article
and the MS KB for RIS
and dont forget google!!
Good luck!

 

yeah... you cant create a image on a MSI mobo then run it on a Intel mobo.. you would use this type of deployment on a coporate level were you buy 10 new pc's lets say all IBM thinkcentres clean out the box.. thats when you would deploy the xp pro using images..

 

Well you said it yourself, RIS requires certain important criteria to be met, hence you can't use it in every situation. It needs...

1) Active Directory
2) A DHCP server
3) A RIS server
4) A DNS server
5) A compatible PXE NIC or PXE boot ROM on the client

If you want to clone a disk image, including the applications and the operating system, you can use RIPrep with RIS or use Ghost or another third party cloning application.

 

Boy this is a good topic. It has confirmed the area I have already known about RIS, and enforce the area that I'm iffy about.

 

Yeah we have all of that at work and the powers that be won't entertain the idea- they'd rather pay x amount on 3rd party imaging.

 

the last time i worked with imaging was 4 years ago (that long since I was out of IT field before layoff). We used Novell BootP client diskette to boot to the Novell Server to start the ghost.exe and copy the images to the PCs. Same with NT server too, however, it would take too long to download the image file, so we would copy the image file and the ghost program to a CD (which the image was only less than 500MB compare to a several GB now) to avoid tying up the network during heavy traffic hour.

 

RIS does have some limitations that don't make it as flexible as some of the 3rd party apps out there. Most especially for a start, you can only 'clone' the boot partition of the PC you may want to roll out to other clients. It also needs allot more configuring and setting up than to do a quick ghost of a system.

If you have a corporate version of Ghost, you have all the advantages of a system like RIS and none of the disadvantages.

In my experience of ghosting and cloning machines over a number of years, ideally you want identical hardware or very similar hardware.

It is possible to clone to do a successful clone between motherboard manufacturers, but it can be more trouble than it's worth in some instances to get the PC working reliably afterwards. If the hardware is similar and not too different, you can quite often use a Windows Repair installation to get an XP system up and running without problems.

 

Nope, but we will be getting it at work in the new finacial year, will cost a few grand for a licence for the whole place, AFAIK.