What do I use to create an XP image for WDS on win2003 sp2

[PeaseofChad]

I've just built a 2003 with sp2 with the soul purpose of deploying images. I have never built one before so I'm looking for some guidance. I have the server up to speed. I've installed WDS and I'm running it in Native mode. I need to get a boot image and as I understand it needs to be a WIM image. My big questions are...what application(s) can I use to create this type of image and does it sound like I'm off on the right foot? Thanks

[Tripredacus]

If you are in the corporate or hobbyist environment, get the WAIK (Microsoft Windows Automated Install Kit) or if you are in the OEM channel you can use the Microsoft OPK (Vista SP1 servicing edition). It will walk you through creating the boot media in which you can use PXE or a CD-ROM to boot the clients with. You can do everything manually or get a program to install into the Win PE (your boot media) that makes it easier on you.

As for setting up a PXE server, see my sig. IcemanND has a good WinPE/ImageX guide in the WinPE forum. I use Geezery's GiMagex COM object HTA program in my WinPE. I recommend you learn how to use the command prompt in the PE before trying out someone's program, because sometimes you have to do it manually if something isn't working right.

[PeaseofChad]

Awesome! Thank you! I've got so far as getting the WinPE boot image onto the server, I've created a reference XP computer and run the deploy.cab and created a Mini file, resealed and rebooted the system. During the reboot I first encountered the error where I didn't have option 60 setup on my DHCP. I've fixed that issue and now I'm getting a new one that I don't quite understand what I need to do from here.

The error is:

PXE-E55: ProxyDHCP service did not reply to request on port 4011.

What options might I possibly have for this? Thanks again all!

[Tripredacus]

Your computer has requested an IP address from the DHCP server. Your computer is telling you that you did not get a valid response (but a response was sent). This can be caused by various reasons.

- The container object (aka the Computer as it has been registered in AD) is corrupted. You can delete this object (in Active Directory users and computers) and wait 5 minutes and try again.

- there is an IP reservation for the client's computer name and the IP is already in use. Check for IP reservations in the DHCP cpl. Also you can delete the lease for that computer if you find it.

There is also another issue. I originally couldn't get DHCP and PXE working on the same computer. If you see the guide in my signature, I had used two computers to handle the PXE boot process because I was not able to solve the PXE-E55 error when using 1 server. Since then, with no cfg changes being made, the computer I used for DHCP had died and I merely changed my WDS Server to be authorized to use DHCP and it magically worked, so I don't know. Anyways, here's this also:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257579

[PeaseofChad]

I got it! Thank you! The link to the K-base pushed me into the right direction. The problem I was running into was that I didn't realize that my DHCP and WDS had to be in the same subnets. They recognized each other fine and then when I added options 60, 66 and 67 to my DHCP it was getting me further in the boot process but still not letting me in all of the way. After I switched the WDS over to the correct subnet and removed the options WDS picked up immediately and then I used the boot.wim to capture my image.

Thank you Tripredacus for all of your help!