RIS CD Install OR IMAGES

[DeathBowl]

Here is the situation. Sorry for the typos , i'm french canadian O_o

I'm working in education domain. I'm still not very experienced ( been working for 1 year now and 23 years old )

We have over 6000 computers in 70 different buildings.

We are in the process of removing Novell system to implement AD (Active Directory).

Most High school pedagogical computers are beeing imaged with 2 different images (Compaq and IBM Desktops) With an almost fresh Updated WinXP SP2 Installation + a few Programs (SMS Client, McAfee, PolicyMaker)

Everything is working fine as we use ZenImaging to push those images and Multicast bigger Labs.

Base images are working on 95% of our pedagogical park. (Desktops)

I was asked to build and experiment RIS and WDS so we can get rid , eventually , of the ZEN imaging Server.

I've come to the conclusion that wds is more Vista Oriented and we decided to stay with WINXP for a few years.

I was Able to build a fully fonctionnal RIS server and to incorporate drivers into it. I builded an unattended installation where the technician can simply start the image and the computer logs automaticly with a local admin user on the domain to be able to push SMS scripts and Incorporate a few tweak to WMP and Framework installation. I was able to incorporate about 6-9 different computers drivers into the installation.

The problem is:

Senior techs are working to do the administrative computers. There are a LOT of different computers and a lot of them are notebooks. I can tell you there are more than 40 diff. computers and notebooks to integrate into the ris installation. Driver integration for notebooks of Different brands, models and devices. I can't see the end to the integration of drivers , and even less the installation of the 60-80 different utilities that are used on each of the notebooks for Power Management, Keyboards shortcut, etc... It Goes from old PII compaq Notebooks with 128Ram to Last IBM notebooks with 2gig ram. So WINPE and his 380+ MB is kind of hard to use and very situationnal

On the other side. techs have been working with different images for each model of notebook , integrating softwares, and drivers for each of them. Making over 30 or 40 images to keep up-to-date with evrything. Either way i see a LOT of work as we have to rebuild each image with Microsoft System instead of Novell.

The senior techs are new to AD envirronement , and even more to RIS and WDS ( Actually, I built it mostly alone with the help of these forums and the Internet). I talk about it with them and they seem a bit clueless about how to proceed.

I'm seeking advice on how i could bring the best method for deploying our new system to all these diff computers. MOstly NoteBooks (IBM-Toshiba-Compaq)

A noob tech trying to find a solution for his Senior techs

[twilliamsen]

Are you running SMS now or planning on it?

I would put SMS up and push XP through that.

Look at how to upgrade Novell, then push it through SMS.

This way you wouldn't need to worry about differences in brands, models, etc.

[DeathBowl]

We have a running SMS server pushing 50+ Applications to pedagogical computers. I'm not in charge of the SMS server. You can incorporate Drivers and Software Utilities for Laptops with it? How long do you think it would take to set this?

And we are removing Novell, to go with AD. We don't plan to update it.

Edited February 14, 2008 by DeathBowl

[twilliamsen]

Look on Microsoft's knowledge base on SMS and Operating systems on upgrading, installing, etc.