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Windows Deployment Services


fizban2

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Not sure which forum was the best for this but this one seems to sound good, just install WDS and got it working sorta, anyone else test and installed this yet? i am confused on how to create a PE that will work with WDS. have gotten the pwe booting working correctly and can boot into a PE but at that point i am lost.

thanks in advance

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Well...

I also installed WDS on top of a RIS box, got to the boot menu, and could launch for example WinPE 2.0 from it succesfully.. however, when trying to add a .wim file (that I have created by manually from XP) to the section: Install Images - WDS returns a error msg, stating: "not a syspreped image". The thing is, it is syspreped.. Oki, so what if upload the install.wim file from the vista or longhorn builds then? Then WDS returns a msg stating: "Not a valid install image".

Anyway, I dunno how it really works and I have not been able to spend time on it either but if I dont recall false, the install.wim files from the vista and longhorn srv media are syspreped (dunno if it checks the versions and so on). I really hope that the WDS product will support native .wim deployment for both pre vista operating systems (worried that they are going to sepearate it as it has a "mixed" mode) but it doesnt really tells you if the mixed mode is there because of, the option to run both RIS (flat) and WDS(wim) or because it cant handle pre vista os .wim files. I dont wanna end up with 2 ways of deploying OS's, just the new .wim format. Also, as you can succesfully create .wim files from a syspreped xp box and the deploy it again using the ximage.exe I dont see why it should not support both.

Anyone else that has been able to elaborate with the WDS beta yet? or could give us a hint on how to use it or why it is complaining?

Best Regards

Tha Sausage Eater

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I have loaded a wim of XP sp2 and it loads fine, the issue i am finding trying to get from the PE boot to the actual image install, the WDS instructions refer to a WDS client that is suppose to run with the PE, but i have found no evidence of the client, i would expect it is added at the time you add your boot pe to the WDS server.

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OK,

figured out the PXE boot, if you apply the vista 5308 boot wim to a folder, you can see the structure needed to make a bart PE pxe bootable

windows\boot\pxe\*.*

in the folder that you created you will see 5 folders

programfiles
program data
sources
Users
Windows

copying the contents of the pxe boot folder you can use this to boot you win pe's to the WDS server

got an error trying to run my install image though, will be working on it to see what happend

also side note, those files in the PXE boot foler on the vista boot wim are located on the reminst directory that you created for the WDS

under \reminst\boot\x86\

all the files you need are there.

as for the XP image, is just a XP sp2 image that had been syspreped, that is all, i think i need to look more in RIS to get this working right,

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ok, got wds client running in the PE now, but getting errors with the setup.exe. this is all running on a virtual server (3 actaully) but i think it is just a memory issue, any thoughts?

Error

-----------

the expection unknown software exception (0xe0000100)

occured in the application at location (0x77e4028b)

-----------

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ok, got wds client running in the PE now, but getting errors with the setup.exe. this is all running on a virtual server (3 actaully) but i think it is just a memory issue, any thoughts?

Error

-----------

the expection unknown software exception (0xe0000100)

occured in the application at location (0x77e4028b)

-----------

That WDS client software, where did u find it? or at what stage does it become available? and is it included with the CTP release for WDS as well? been reading the MS docs but I cant figure out where to install from or at what stage it becomes avail...

My problem with the sysprepped XP image was that I had used a previous version of the ximage.exe for creating the .wim file. Hopefully...

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the client software is actually built into the setup.exe for vista, which is why you need to use a vista PE boot.wim, the files are also created for you in your WDS installation look in the REMINST\boot\<osversion>\

there will be the pxe files that are created there, those will need to be copied to your own custom PE if you wanted to use another other then a vista boot PE, the files would go in the Windows\boot\pxe folder on the PE,

here are the files that are needed,

abortpxe.com

bootmgr.exe

hdscom1.com

hdscom1.n12

hdscom2.com

hdscom2.n12

pxeboot.com

pxeboot.n12

wdsnbp.com

those should be found on the WDS\REMINST\boot\<osversion>\should be in there

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  • 1 month later...

Has anyone successfully booted a WinPE 2005 (Server 2003 SP1) WIM via WDS? I'm getting an error that i386\system32\winload.exe is missing. I know that's a Vista file, but when I add it to the PE 2005 WIM, it still errors out saying the registry is corrupt. Is the WDS version pxeboot.com only for booting WinPE 2.0 (VistaPE)? Is there another NBP that I need to PXE boot PE 2005?

Thanks!

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