Making domain users local admins during install

[Silent Bob]

Hi. I've been playing around with RIS on a Windows 2003 server the last month, and have started to install PC's at work from the server rather than from my unattended XPCD (they're practically the same, all scripts and programs are launched from a central file store of practical reasons).

As I've played around, I've found more and more methods to make my work easier. And now I want clients to be able to reinstall their machines themselves. I'm using risetup images with BTS Driverpacks and some programs via RunOnceEx. But now I want my clients to be local administrator on their laptops. Does anybody have any suggestions on how this could be made?

The only thing I've tried so far is to have the users (who need local admin rights) in a group, and assign local administrator rights on that group during install. That works, but my boss doesn't like it, he wants only the owner of the laptop to have adminstrator rights.

I've thought of one solution myself. That is to get the username from a .osc file during text-mode setup and use it later in the install process with net user or something like that, but I don't know exactly how.

So - any help or suggestions would be appreciated

[RogueSpear]

Your boss needs to learn what "micromanaging" is Seriously, when I first started to read this, I was going to suggest using group policy, but that would only do precisely what he said he doesn't want done. You could do what you want to do with a VBscript that leverages ADSI. Either a text file that maps users to computers, or a good long CASE/SELECT would do the trick.

This isn't something I've scripted before, so I don't have anything ready made to show you. But if you're handy in VBS you should be able to work it out.

[Silent Bob]

Hmm. Thanks for the answer. I'll look into what I can do from VBscript (or give my boss a real kick in the a**). I've just started with RIS and I'm planning to try out some of your scripts from the guide in the near future. Now I've got like 10-15 batch scripts, and half of them could be replaced by a few more powerful VBscripts.

A little practical question while we're at it: How do you implement updates in your RIS images when you're not using RVMs Update Packs? Now my image is just a plain vanilla slipstreamed XP Pro SP2, but I want to integrate all hotfixes too.

I've thought of running a few "critical" (like Windows installer etc) from svcpack.inf and then the rest from RunOnceEx (just a script to start all hotfixes in a directory on a file store for easy maintenance), but I'd like to hear other methods. Is it safe/recommended to integrate a bunch with nLite on a CD source and build a risetup-image of the updated source?

And again - thanks a bunch for your precious time and effort, I've practically learned everything i know about RIS and unattended setups from this site

[RogueSpear]

To be totally honest with you, I always use RVM with my RIS images. Wayyy back when I used to use the /integrate method, but really it's an inferior way to get your installs up to snuff. Not only does the install take a lot longer, but then you wind up with a lot of extra files floating around on each workstation. It's just unnecessary. The method behind Ryan's integration is completely and totally solid. And along the way, it's matured a lot. Version 2.0.4 which is due out probably in the next week has gone through a lot of testing by a variety of people.

If you want to use it on a RIS image though, you might want to do yourself a favor and use either RISult or AutoRIS. If you want to use the BTS Driver Packs and are not familiar with how to set it up manually, use RISult.

[Silent Bob]

Yeah, I'd love to use RVM, the only problem is that I need Norwegian images, hence also Norwegian updates. I've thought about trying to make a Norwegian update pack for RVM a long time, but I just don't have the time. I've got like a million projects at once right now. Maybe I could try to gather up some of the Norwegian members (I've noticed quite a few of them around) of the board for help, but I haven't got that far yet.

About BTS driverpacks, they're already included in my images. That went surprisingly easy, and I'm about to build my own driverpack for everything BTS doesn't cover on our PCs. The only downside of integrating BTS in RIS images is that it is hard to maintain and update (compared to a CD source), but it is still way easier than installing all drivers after install.

I'll take a look at RISult eventually (tried AutoRIS though), but both mainly to see different solutions of things and/or inspiration. Or, now that I feel kind of comfortable with RIS, maybe I'll be more willing to let someone else do the job for me. I just like to know what's going on "under the hood" before I do things