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RIS One Machine At A Time?


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Weird problem going on here. I got a flat install working so I went to test it on several machines.

Machine A starts RIS'ing and is downloading windows files.

Machine B starts RIS'sing and begins downloading windows files.

Machine A hard locks-up. (Num lock light doesn't function).

Machine B continues chugging and finished coping/installs fine.

I reverse them.

Machine B starts RIS'ing and is downloading windows files.

Machine A starts RIS'sing and begins downloading windows files.

Machine B hard locks-up. (Num lock light doesn't function).

Machine A continues chugging and finished coping/installs fine.

So now I'm at a loss. I've 'proven' its not a hardware issue on the computers themselves. Seems that I can only RIS one machine at a time, but I'm not sure why.

Anyone else run into this, Any thoughts?

Had thought if a file wasn't marked READ-ONLY and it should be for sharing purposes - then the 'last' machine would have a problem - not the first.

:}

Edited by shieldsa
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Is your RIS server multi-homed? (either multiple NICs with TCP/IP bound to them, or a single NIC with multiple IP addresses bound to it on the same subnet) If so, that's no supported for RIS.

Also, check to make sure your client NICs have different MAC addresses. I've seen brand new cheap NICs which came with the same MAC address, and I've seen NICs where people have doctored the MAC address for various reasons.

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I haven't run into this before, but in reality I can't remember the last time I fired up two RIS installs nearly simultaneous with one another. I know you'd like to find the cause, and a solution, to the problem, but a possible workaround would be to wait to start another RIS install until the text mode portion of setup has completed on the first computer. After text mode, the computer shouldn't need to contact the RIS server again during setup.

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cool, I can live with that for now. Sorta in a crunch to get them going so that's a compromise I can live with.

But yeah, it is weird. hopefully I'll get it figured out before the next major deployment.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Are you booting into WinPE from RIS to do this, or simply using RIS to launch the text mode setup? If you're using WinPE (and not using the RAMDISK method), this sort of thing is known to happen.

Edited by cluberti
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Are you booting into WinPE from RIS to do this, or simply using RIS to launch the text mode setup? If you're using WinPE (and not using the RAMDISK method), this sort of thing is known to happen.

Could you elaborate a little more? I was planning to boot WinPE via PXE into RIS. (however, I am using the ramdisk method). I am curious to know what you are talking about.

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There are known issues when using WinPE in RIS if you don't use the RAMDISK method - you can have a few users on it at a time, but it will cause clients (or even the RIS server) to hang if you don't use the RAMDISK with enough users attached at any one time. WinPE wasn't ever meant to be used this way, so that's one of the many reasons the RAMDISK functionality was built into 2005 :).

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I used to have similar problems with WinPE over RIS. In my case the naming of the clients was causing the problem. They all had the same name when connected to the RIS server.

I solved it by setting the name to be related to the MAC address instead of a user name. You must change this for the RIS server. It's a setting in AD.

I'm able to run as many installations as I want now. Hope this helps.

Edited by Jopster
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Just on the offchance, I'm sure you will have checked.

On the RIS server, you no doubt have a network share containing the RIS image(s). I assume this share is set to "Maximum Allowed" users and not just 1?

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