mmarable

Google is your friend. Google Search... What does your hardware look like? Error Message: Setup Cannot Set the Required Windows XP Configuration Information

Yes, Deep Freeze is also used by some departments on campus here. From what I hear they're very happy with it.

You have several options. 1. You can see if you can disable the CDROM and USB ports in the BIOs. 2. You can use Group Policies to disable the USB and other removable media. 3. You can set the file system permissions to Read Only for key folders to prevent users from copying files to the computer. 4. You can go as far as putting silicon into the USB ports to prevent users from plugging into them. A bit extreme but people do it. 5. You can check out Microsoft's "Shared Computer Toolkit". It's free from Microsoft and it's geared for this sort of thing. We use it on the public kiosks were I work.

What is this? Your preview doesn't work and you offer no explanation as to what it is.

Such a thing is pretty simple really. You don't have to go as far as creating a database, you could put it into a simple CSV file like this: serialnumber,IPAddress,Server serialnumber2,IPAddress2,Server2 .... and so on. Depending on your hardware, you could probably pull the serial number directly from the BIOs, look that S/N up in the CSV table and then plug in the IP address and server into your build process.

You're not going to be able to do PXE boot and RIS/WDS install Windows in your setup since RIS/WDS require Active Directory. You would have to use some 3rd party PXE server/service running on PC1 to get PC2 to boot and install. Or, you can create a WinPE boot CD/USB to boot from, map to a share of your Windows install files and run the install from there.

You have a couple of options. You can put it all in $OEM$\$1\Install and treat it just like it's documented in unattended.msfn.org. Or, a better bet would be to create a shared folder on a server to house all your application installs and then install them silently from there. You would have to have your workstation autologin with a domain account that has local admin rights as well as access to the network share were your apps are stored. The process is the same either way, the only thing that would change would be the location of your installation sources. There are other options such as SMS and GPOs, but that starts involving much more work and complicates things greatly.

Blue files and folders are compressed. Green ones are encrypted.

No kidding. You put the effort into creating something, have a little pride in your work and put up a screenshot. Rapidshare is a hassle, so unless I know what I'm getting into I'm not going to bother with dealing with the download.

No, there is no way to "slipstream" this into a Windows installation. They are all 3rd party applications that you will have to install. You may be able to automated the installations of some of them though.

No, you will have to use a 3rd party app to do this. You would have to install the app as you would any other application in your unattended setup. Exactly how will depend on what app you end up using.

Dido, You have a basic problem that I think you're over-complicating. Does the key work if you manually type it in when prompted? Does your key work with the source CD when you do a manual install? Have you tried a simplified WinNT.sif file? Strip it down to the basics (build one using Setup Manager from the deployment tools). Have you tried to create a simple unattended CD, with no tweaks from nLite? Are you using a VLK CD as your source? If you are being prompted by the install to enter your key, the install does not find your key to be valid. The majority of the time problems have simple solutions.

I use a 40GB USB drive with a 10GB FAT32 partiton and a 30GB NTFS partiton. I just copied the Vista DVD as is directly to the FAT32 partition and it boots and runs the Vista install. If you are looking for something simple like that, it works.

Microsoft just release a deployment guide for WDS on Win2003. Hopefully it'll get you going. Deploying and Managing WDS

Cursors are kept in C:\WINDOWS\Cursors, so you can just add them to $OEM$\$$\Cursors.

I'm guessing that if you type in your key when prompted everything works, right? If that's the case, something got hosed when nLite generated the SIF file. Have you manually typed in the key into the SIF? If it's prompting for the key, the install binaries do not like the key that is being fed in from the SIF. If you manually enter it and the install works, then there is some typo in the SIF. If you manually type the key at the prompt and it does not work, then the binaries don't match the key that you're using (i.e. you using a VLK disk but not a VLK key).

Go to a DVD? Have you cleared out the upgrade and language folders under i386 already? That's a sure fire way to cut almost 100MB?

Here's a real nice step-by-step that will get you rolling. Installing WinXP from USB Thumb Drive

Turn off Active Desktop.

From my experience with RIS the server and network really only take the hit while in text mode setup. Once GUI mode starts the install is just about self contained in the client. Our RIS box was far underpowered, so we would stage our builds that way. Once a set of machines finished text mode, we'd kick off the next set. I'd benchmark your server and see how many clients you can do at the same time and how long a given machine takes to complete. You can use that to work out a plan to keep rolling set of "X" number of machines in text mode at any given time. This will give you a constant flow of machines completing and you'll know if your setup will be able to handle the task. So let's say your setup can handle 20 simultanious builds. Work it out so that as your staff start client #20, client #1 is just wrapping up text mode and has freed up its "slot" for client #21. This way you don't have everyone sitting around waiting for all 20 to finish before they start the next 20.

I've been using SP2 on 3 of my servers for a couple of months now and have not had any issues with it.

RIS as well as WDS are initiated from the client. So, if you have the staff to run computer to computer getting the process started, then RIS can do the job. If you were looking for something that you could initiate from a central location, then something like GhostCast would be your best bet.

Your next step will be to get a basic unattended installation working. If you're working with a mix of servers, start with one and get things working on it, then you will just need to add the mass storage drivers for the other. You'll want to get the mass storage drivers added first, otherwise your install is going fail when it cannot see the disk drives. Then you'll want to automate the install. There are tons of step-by-step postings on doing installs from WinPE, so that part will be easy. Just remember, when doing an install originating from PE you'll need to put your $OEM$ folder inside your i386 folder. Toss in a simple Diskpart script at the start and you'll be good to go. I've never worked with Dell servers before, but the HPs I've worked with were pretty striaght forward.

If I remember correctly, NetCMD.exe was a Win2000 Resource Kit tool. It isn't part of WinXP, but you should be able to download it from Microsoft.

No, your USB drives do not rely on your mass storage drivers. So that's not the problem. If you see it in Disk Manager then you're fine. If you manually assign the disk a drive letter (like nitroshift said) does it work correctly? This is the same way that Windows 2003 handles USB drives. I remember seeing an older post that explained a way to turn on/off the automatic drive letter assignments in Windows. Have you done any tweaking of your system? Any Registry tweaks added, etc.? Also, did this use to work and then suddenly stop?