WDS Basics Help

[Bondi007]

Hello There!

I am new to this forum and I was hoping you bunch could shed some light on my problem, I have server 2003 enterprise edition and I want to make a .wim image of XP Pro SP2 it needs to be unnattended. can anybody give me a link to a easy step by step guide or could someone go through the step by steps with me? Im only 15 and this would help alot if I was to complete this for my course.

Thanks

Bondi

EDIT : Been on google but goes oftopic too much!

Edited September 8, 2008 by Bondi007

[Tripredacus]

There is a lot of information here you can make use of.

ImageX (the program used to make WIM files) is an imaging program, and not setup program. I do not believe that anyone has been able to capture an unattended install of XP as a WIM yet. I've tried and so far I have been unsuccessful as to making it work properly. You can make a WIM of an XP installation, but it is hardware dependent, although it is possble to make it more open to redeployment onto other hardware besides what it was captured on.

Make sure to check out the WinPE and XP Deployment sections of this forum.

[Bondi007]

So there is not a way for unattended yet? well with WDS? For my project I need to make a ''unnattended'' XP Pro SP2 install with no user input apart from username and password to server.

Would RIS do it? Is RIS on 2000 server?

I tried doing it a funny way I typed risetup.exe on the WDS server and it asked me for a XP Pro SP2 CD and it copied files and worked but when you edit it with nlite it wont copy the files on the client machine.

Thanks

Bondi

[Tripredacus]

So there is not a way for unattended yet? well with WDS? For my project I need to make a ''unnattended'' XP Pro SP2 install with no user input apart from username and password to server.

Would RIS do it? Is RIS on 2000 server?

I tried doing it a funny way I typed risetup.exe on the WDS server and it asked me for a XP Pro SP2 CD and it copied files and worked but when you edit it with nlite it wont copy the files on the client machine.

Thanks

Bondi

Yes you need to set up your WDS in Mixed-Mode. It will then be able to call the setup.exe with whatever options you select and deploy from your distribution share. However, using a WIM isn't going to work, it isn't meant for unattended installs, only for creating drive images.

You may have an option of capturing an XP Pro image, and then scripting sysprep to do the unattended work. I have no experience in this option.

You can also use the WinPE to call the setup.exe from within the startnet.cmd, and you can point to an unattend file but you can't use a winbom.ini file.

[Bondi007]

Ive heard this about native mode and mixed mode how to you set it up in mixed mode?

Thanks for advice

[Tripredacus]

Ive heard this about native mode and mixed mode how to you set it up in mixed mode?

Thanks for advice

The only place I have seen it is when you install the WDS Component. It asks you what mode you want to use it in, and Native is the default option. I don't know how you would switch it after the fact, but I am sure it must be possible.