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Install XP from winPE?


Damnation

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Back then XP was still a current product, we (my company) opted to go with imaging rather than using any sort of unattended setup like with WDS or from CD+network share because imaging was just faster. You only have some initial setup time for creating the image itself, which does not get figured into manufacturing time. Then when you can image a system in 4 minutes, it can be a big deal when you are talking about needing to image hundreds of systems. WDS and CD installs just did not cut it.

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20 hours ago, Tripredacus said:

Back then XP was still a current product, we (my company) opted to go with imaging rather than using any sort of unattended setup like with WDS or from CD+network share because imaging was just faster. You only have some initial setup time for creating the image itself, which does not get figured into manufacturing time. Then when you can image a system in 4 minutes, it can be a big deal when you are talking about needing to image hundreds of systems. WDS and CD installs just did not cut it.

Yep :), personally I never fully understood the utility (genericaly speaking) of "unattended" for most uses (see below).

Large corporations tend to buy hardware in batches, so you have (say) 100 actually identical systems, you take your time (sometimes plenty of it) to set-up properly one and then you just make an image of it that you then can re-deploy, perfectly configured to the other 99, then you just "personalize" the thingy (Computer ID, if needed SID, etc.), at next reboot, this is way faster than anything, because besides the main OS you can pre-install any sort of software, custom set each and every detail, etc .

Even if you have 2000 PC's, all you will need would be some 10-20 images,

On the other hand, if you  have only (say) 2 systems it takes much less time to install them "attended", unless - for whatever resons - you reinstall very often (and if this is the case, then making an image is still a better/faster option).

The use of "Unattended" and "universal hardware images" seems to me useful only in some particular cases, where there is the need to install on many (very) different systems and where the "end result" is either required to be "generic" or however that will be later (attended) personalized.

But - still to be fair - the .wim format and the possibility to "capture" (and "apply") an image through WDS is actually "nice", but only since the various (and various versions of) imageX and Dism "peculiarities" have been (hopefully) solved, and of course only on Gb network, the good ol' 100 Mb ones were IMHO too slow compared to a "local" deployment. 

jaclaz 

Edited by jaclaz
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Yes there was a particular problem on 100Mb networks that I encountered... but I can say (in my experience) it had nothing to due with 100Mb connections. In fact, your imaging time is maybe only increase 10-20% on a 100Mb connection. And also I will consider a *normal* (maximum) image size to be around 6GB. And unless you are running a pure 100Mb segment, I would recommend using hardware that support Link Aggregation so to not slow down gigabit connections.

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