Unattended Install W/ Symantec Ghost

[lableupunn]

I'm sorry beforehand for posting this question, which might sound somewhat bizarre to some of you. I need to set up 1000+ computers of different makes, and would like to take advantage of the unattended install, only problem is that I'm not going to go walking around and waiting 40+ minutes at each workstation while it installs to move on to the next. RIS was also a consideration, but I've been getting some errors due to a missing file, during the text mode setup portion, but that's another post. With that said, is there any way of cloning the setup environment using ghost after the initial copying of files to the HD? I know that setup uses the CD/DVD during its final stretch, but is there a way to make the setup install from a source within the HD. For example, adding a copy of the I386 directory to the $OEM$ folder so that it copies it over to the HD then setup would continue the installation from the I386 directory in the HD rather than the CD/DVD disk. Only problem with that would be telling windows where the new install source is. With that it would be possible to clone the computer before the graphical install starts and have ghost push out the images to the computers and continue the install.

Thanks for the help in advance.

[T D]

I know that a ghost install disc is bootable, if you can create a gho when booting from it after txtmode onto a REALLY big memory stick or even better, another partition, then you could put it on a dvd or something w/ a BartPE disc and restore it on other PCs.

Btw nobody can do that on 1000+ PCs. But you have GOT to be some sort of big company otherwise it'd take ages.

Links: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/download/

Good luck.

[IcemanND]

just do you install from the hard drive and deploy that via ghost

[lableupunn]

Well, the problem with ghosting the hard drive after the textmode setup is that the post reboot graphical setup accesses the install CD for certain files, and setup can't continue. Copying the install files to the HD and running it from there wouldn't really achieve an unattended install, unless there is somehow a way of rigging up a boot file with commands to run the setup. As for Ghost, I'm using Symantec Ghost Corp, so the images can be created and multicasted to the computers from the server.

Any other ideas?

[HwagPo]

Hi, i'm not sure if i understood the question. but why not just install Windows on a model computer then make a ghost image of that system, then use this sysprep-ed image to deploy to other workstations?

[CoffeeFiend]

We've got way more computers than that, and of many makes too (we buy in large qtys, but over the years you accumulate lots of different ones).

Good old sysprep + ghost works best for our setup. We keep a generic image updated, plus a few more for some "more problematic" PCs (which we're having to do more and more lately, due to SATA mass storage adapters and such). But those "other" images aren't used quite as often, are updated as needed (deploy old to one PC, update, sysprep, create new image from that), so it's not that time consuming either.

RIS, PXE and all wasn't of much use for us (we do ocasionnaly use ghost multicast server though). Anything that isn't straight ghosting is installed from a network share (boot via good old custom/heavily-tweaked Bart floppy with tons of NDIS2 drivers and all, burnt onto a CD). One day we might switch to WinPE, but so far the floppy is still a better method for the way we do things.

Plain unattended installs? That would be the ultimate last resort. Not. Gonna. Happen. Takes too much time for mass deployments, it's just not realistic - even for "daily" reinstalls by the guys at the bench when something's gone wrong. ~3 minutes for reimaging right at the user's desk while he grabs some java VS take his PC away from his desk for over an hour? (more like a full day if you count everything else that has to be installed after windows: AV, line of business apps, ms office, in-house apps, more patches, etc). Unattended installs from media (CD/DVD) is even more out of the question (if that's even possible). Walk around many, many buildings, with media in hand, insert in drives, wait on it for ages, find out the bios boot sequence wasn't setup right, make sure no one makes a copy of the CD for home use (can't let anyone just use our keys and all), etc. Sounds like a nightmare. If they ever decided to do something like that, I'd let them know that I'll be gone in 2 weeks. (Ok, never gonna happen, as my job doesn't involve doing this stuff )

[edit] looks like HwagPo beat me to it really

Edited July 5, 2006 by crahak

[IcemanND]

I was referring to copying the i386 folder to the hard drive and running the install from there and not using the CD at all.

Also take a look at Binary Research and their Universal Imaging Utility you can use it to have one image for almost any hardware.

Another not cost option is if all of your machines have ACPI Uniprocessore or ACPI Multiprocessor HALs or the majority of them are you can create a single image for them and have sysprep add the mass storage drivers and add your own driver packs for the rest of the drivers. If you build the image on an ACPI Uniprocessor HAL system it will automatically get upgrade to the Multi processor HAL when you boot. If you build it on a mulit you have to add a line to sysprep to have it downgraded to a single if needed.

[HwagPo]

Crahak,

What's your process like in updating MS patches on your ghosted images? Is there such a thing as slipstreaming the patches to a ghost image like what you do when you have a distribution point for unattended installs?

[IcemanND]

@hwaqpo - nope. you can add files to a FAT32 ghost image but NTFS images are not editable. You have to deploy them, update them and then recapture them. I run scripts from my systems at first boot that looks at a csv file to see what post sp2 updates are available and compare that to the installed updates and install the difference.

[HwagPo]

@hwaqpo - nope. you can add files to a FAT32 ghost image but NTFS images are not editable. You have to deploy them, update them and then recapture them. I run scripts from my systems at first boot that looks at a csv file to see what post sp2 updates are available and compare that to the installed updates and install the difference.

IcemanND, would you be so kind to share the scripts? it might be suitable for our environment as well.

thanks.