bluescreens

Can you isolate what's slow? Is the slow part xfering the data, or writing it? If you just xfer it and then discard the data (and don't write it locally) is it still slow? If so, you've got a disk slowdown issue. If you can't even xfer it quickly (ie you discard the data and don't write it - and it's still slow) then that's an ethernet NIC issue.

I'm unable to parse your answer. Does this happen in safe mode? Does this happen in normal mode when you log in as another administrative user that you've created?

Interesting. Can you share how you did that step? I'm familiar with renaming the startrom.n12 bit; what else did you do?

Do you see it in safe mode?

Microsoft *agressively* supports all hotfixes. If you have a problem with installing them, call the normal PSS supportline, and they'll help you install the hotfixes on your system (for free). If you want help with slipstreaming it, there would be a charge for that, but one-off installs are absolutely free. The c:\windows\KBxxxx.log file doesn't tell you anything? Same thing happens in safe mode?

Don't use Ghost alone. Use it in conjunction with Sysprep (available by searching for "deployment tools" at Microsoft, and typically in the DOCS directory on the XPSP2 and 2003 CDs you get from vendors). 2003's sysprep works great with XP. When used correctly with Sysprep and a little bit of knowledge, Ghost is a good tool that cleanly handles driver issues (mass storage included), SIDs, and ... just about everything except HAL issues.

Ghost itself is only designed to copy the core image. You need to do some prep work before the core image is ready - including Sysprep and including some other (documented) steps. If you don't do this, or don't completely understand how to do this, yes, there are problems. If you do do this, though, Sysprep+Ghost works great. You can easily deploy to all PCs no matter what drivers and hardware they have, and Sysprep will intelligently go thru your drivers and pick the right ones, every time. Builds are fast and, with a fast local network, very trouble-free. That said, with a $3-5 per PC licensing fee and with a monolithic setup (want to update a single driver file for a single PC in your ghost image? You'll need to distribute the full Ghost file to all your sites again, not just the 200-300KB in updates, plus you'll need to rebuild the Ghost file) it's not suited for what I'd call enterprise deployment and a constantly changing enterprise environment. For the OP, though, in all honesty it would probably be good enough. That's why I like RIS. It's a breeze to update, whether you have 10 servers or 100, and you can push 100KB changefiles out easily. It's very well supported by Microsoft, and you don't need to worry about HAL issues (if Microsoft finds out you forced the HAL on your PCs, they won't support your problems.)

1. On your 2003 servers (you DO have 2003 servers, right?) add the RIS service. 2. Add an XPSP2 image to the RIS server, using an update.bat or similar textfile as the kickoff batch file to run once XP is installed. 3. In update.bat, install all the hotfixes you want, install all the applications you want, and do all the other things you want. All done. If you have some idea of the drivers you need, you can include them too. For example, in the [unattend] section of ristndrd.sif, put in something like: [unattended] DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore OemPreinstall = yes OemPnPDriversPath="x\c\intel;x\card\o2micro;x\card\ti;x\m\conexant;x\m\pctel;x\n\3c90x;x\n\broadcom" ...and put in the appropriate .sys/.inf drivers for that hardware (above, intel chipsets, o2micro cardbus drivers, ti cardbus drivers, conexant modem drivers, pctel modem drivers, 3c90x nic drivers, broadcom nic drivers.)

Well, [sysprepcleanup] is automatically generated by the BuildMassStorageSection=Yes. And if you are talking about sysprep -clean in your commandlines.txt in the \Sysprep\$OEM$, I knew of that already. I guess the reason for my asking is I have heard some skepticism over the line in sysprep and I really need other people’s opinions. If in the end it is going to end up hurting me, which it doesn't look like the case, I'll take it out, but if this isn't the case I would like to know that as well. I'm just in search of the truth. Sysprep is supported by the people that wrote the operating system. That's a pretty strong show of support. That command is specifically put in there to address XP's inability to cleanly PnP disk controllers that it doesn't know about beforehand. Did you have a specific question?

It won't; that's what it's there for - learn how to clean it too; it's all in the MS KB articles.

When you see the "Press F6 to specify hardware disk drivers", hit F6 and put in your SATA driver floppy. That should let you then proceed.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314486/en-us Bear in mind you'll be fine if you make this a *machine* based startup script; it runs in the System context, so no worries about user access.

I suggest a GPO based, machine based script that maps printers as appropriate every time the machine starts up. Simple, easy to maintain.... A way to dress it up a bit is to script it so that only certain subnets get certain printers, but that may be more trouble than you want to mess with.

You'd be surprised which programs and games try to send outgoing and and whereto. I've had image editors try to send to Microsoft, and didn't realize until my software firewall told me! If you have a router that monitors incoming and outgoing, that's fine, but I've heard that it slows down your connection overall due to the excessive packet monitoring done through the router. Makes sense. Sure, but the same thing is happening on your PC. I just use the MS firewall - and focus on not running malware in the first place.

Everything has risk; this is a low-risk affair. I disagree with a previous poster's suggestion to stick with FAT32. FAT32 is obsolete, error-prone, not journaled, and has issues with large files, with unexpected shutdowns, with power outages, and every time you sneeze on it. FAT32 is obsolete; let it die, and move to the current NTFS.

Windows default. No issues, no compatibility problems, no hassles, works with everything, etc., etc., etc. Plus it's free.

Are you guys applying 2003 hotfix KB823658 (or 2003 SP1)? That should allow just about anyone's INFs to work....and is vastly easier than waiting for RIS-specific INFs or <shudder> modifying them. Cost to get it is $0 - just call up MS and tell 'em you want it.

Using 2003 RIS Server to deploy XP SP2 image (with all drivers installed) Image deploys ok to machine but when the 'mini-setup', sysprep runs for the first time it takes upto 9 mins for windows to install the network components. After this long pause, the machine successfully joins the domain. The machine in question is a HP nc6220 laptop which as a Broadcom NIC, Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG NIC and integrated Bluetooth. ___ Sorry - I don't understand. If you're using the RIS server to deploy XPSP2 images, where does Sysprep come into this? You're using RIS to deploy the image, then Sysprepping the result for some reason? Why?

That *will* help for GUI-mode drivers (34 mins into install when it prompts for domain name, etc.) but won't help OP with his problem, which is that appropriate drivers don't (apparently) exist in i386. OP, add appropriate drivers for your card into i386\system32\drivers folder. Put the .sys file into the \drivers folder as appropriate. Reboot & try again.

Cons: You've got to manage it on the client side, which is a PITA. Imagine this scenario: Users on each floor of a 5 story building are each in their own group. Your Windows Server 2003 login script checks the group, and runs the associated batch command to map all the printers for the given users that belong to each group. If your printers ever change, updating them enterprisewide is as easy as changing the batch script - once, not once for each and every user. You can also manage drivers better - update a driver on the server, *one* time, and *all* clients get the updated driver. Adding a printer on a client, if you didn't want to use batch scripts, is as easy as typing \\servername\printername, and you'll not need to add printer drivers or screw with anything else, ever.

You'll be fine if the HALs used by both are compatible and if the hard disk controllers used by both are compatible. You can't solve the HAL issue easily, and the hard disk controller issue can be resolved by pre-installing the HDD drivers for your new motherboard while your old MB is still in use. If you couldn't boot with the new MB, just put the old one back in. Legal users, for the most part, shouldn't need to worry about reauthorizing the computer; it should be very straightforward.

(Bump) We've also got a locked environment - and printers aren't available during the machine build. Any information on how to allow users (as non-admins) to install drivers, even months after the intial build, would be appreciated.

So what, exactly, did you do? I used HP's util to format FAT16 as you said, then put the MININT directory in place and copied 2 files over so I finally had an NTDETECT and NTLDR file in the room of the USB drive; wouldn't boot. ??