wibble

Hey guys thanks for the responses. I have rolled back from sp2 back to sp1 and been able to get RIS installed and setup successfully. I did find that when I re upgraded to SP2 and installed WDS I have been able to use my old risetup images which is brilliant Many thanks for the help

Hey guys, I have just started to look at using remote tools to deploy images to my workstations. I have been reading up on RIS and it seems a nicer way of setting up a PC than to have to manually go through the process of putting an unattended cd in and waiting for it to work then move the cd on etc. So I have just gone to me 2003 SP2 server and seen that Windows Deployment Services has taken the place of RIS. I have gone through the process and rebooted and got my WDS icon and also the legacy icon that appears to run risetup. I have jumped into WDS and completed the little startup wizard and now I am being asked for my .wim image file. Now everything I am looking at seems to point to the fact that this needs to come from a sysprep'd image of an XP install which would be fine if I had lots of identical machines but what I would like is to have an install that will do a generic XP install and then let me push out other bits and pieces as is required. My reading on RIS seemed to indicate this was possible by pointing the RISETUP at your i386 folder and then customising it all with an answer file or post install. I currently dont have any RIS images and I am unable to get into the legacy RISETUP i get an error saying that I cant run it on a WDS that is already configured. My reason for posting is: If I made a base install of XP on machine X then sysprep'd it its going to have all the drivers etc for that computer and then when I apply that image to another machine with a different spec I will have all sorts of drivers that I don't want on the system. Is there, therefore, a way that allows me to create an image based on the i386 folder of my xp cd that can be deployed to any machine that meets the requirements? Any help is much appreciated guys. Kind regards, WDS newbie

Hey guys thanks for your help. In the end I managed to get hold of the acer recovery cd's and restore to "factory settings" i then had the fun of repartitioning, sp2ing and all the other bollocks that came with it.

I could do that but I do want to activate it and use it properly. I have already formatted so cannot get the old cd key off the laptop - why oh way are acer like this????

I am trying to reinstall winxp pro and have a cd that i have slipstreamed sp2 onto to save time later however this isnt accepting my cd key that came with the laptop. I have followed guides to change the setupp.ini file so the pid entry now says OEM but this doesnt seem to work. I cannot see what is wrong. The laptop was purchased new from acer and I dont want to have to dig out the original CD to get this reinstalled. Any help will be much appreciated

I am trying to reinstall winxp pro and have a cd that i have slipstreamed sp2 onto to save time later however this isnt accepting my cd key that came with the laptop. I have followed guides to change the setupp.ini file so the pid entry now says OEM but this doesnt seem to work. I cannot see what is wrong. The laptop was purchased new from acer and I dont want to have to dig out the original CD to get this reinstalled. Any help will be much appreciated