Ris Questions

[un4given1]

Ok, I have been comming here for a couple months now and I have helped and helped, but now I am going to ask my first question. For those of you who I have not run across yet, "hello!" I love forums, and finding this one has really been a treat. I know just about anything you could imagine about RIS and chances are that this is not even possible...

During the Client Installation Wizard of a RIS installation is there any way to pass a variable from CIW to the environment variables or anywhere else? The idea is to be able to select a "usertype" during the CIW and once the setup is complete, set a GuiRunOnce instance to gather the variable(s) and install certain softwares dependant on this. Unfortunately in order to keep legal I have to install certain versions of different items on different PCs. This is a corporate environment and I am the administrator on the server. It is our software installation point for all of our software and our office administration points. This server services over 500 PCs and we are gearing up for a company wide rollout of Windows XP. RIS is the only option that we wish to use. Other methods just don't give us the flexability that RIS does. Using RISPrep images are not the course I wish to follow either. I want a batch script to disect the variables passed to it, and for each "usertype" to use the same image.

Now, in the past I have asked questions about RIS and I have NEVER received a reply (on different large forums). I know that there are others out there who use RIS so if you can please just give me any information you have regarding this issue I would appreciate it.

To those of you who are "pros" at unattended Windows XP CDs, please understand that RIS is a completely different beast. The CIW that I speak of is not the text mode setup, it is even before that. It's a series of stripped down HTML files that walk you through a series of questions such as username, login, computername, and image. While I appreciate your help, please do not post replies such as "just create an unattended CD" Thank you for your time everyone!

Please, if you have any questions about RIS that you would like answered please let me know. I would be more than willing to help you out. I am working on a page at this time that will detail a lot of the information I have come across and figured out for myself. While creating a RIS image is not much different than a CD, there is so much more that you can do. Please let me know if I can help, or if you can help me!

Edit: HAHA.. just noticed my join date... it hasn't even been one month! Time flies when you are having fun, huh?

Oh, I forgot to mention. The server is Windows Server 2003. The image is Windows XP SP1. Please let me know if there are anymore questions.

[darph]

HI

my idea is that you build up a Server with Active Directory and Ris installation so you can give every user that software that he needs or want. You althoug be able to install software later and the installation server is still a Ris server but only for the software rollout you use Active Directory.

I hope it is a little help

so long

darph

[un4given1]

I already have a RIS server with Windows Server 2003. One of the prereqesites of RIS is AD, so you can assume that I have that as well. The method you suggested is what I already do using batch scripts, but it requires me to manually run the script after the install is complete and answer a bunch of questions. I am wanting to place these questions in the CIW. I am just wanting to find a way pass variables from CIW to a completed windows build. Using Active directory to push out software is not an option. The PCs are configured per "position" and not user. There are sales, managment, support, developers, accounting, and a few others that each have unique software. Some of these PCs sit behind 256K lines so pushing software to them at any other time than the build is not possible. Thank you for your suggestions darph.

[un4given1]

*bump*

Like I said.. my topics never seem to get any answers. Just wanted another go-'round to see if anyone knew.

[darph]

hm

so i do not know how to fix the problem but when i get an idea i will post it

i look what i find.

so long

darph

[un4given1]

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

I know that many of you will never use RIS, and nowhere on the net will you find this information, but I want to finally make it available for anyone else who has the same idea as me.

Here is what I did...

I added an item to the OSChoose Client Installation Wizard Screens to gather a variable. (The problem originally was that I could not figure out how to pass this variable to the finished product)

<BOLD>Position ID: </BOLD><INPUT NAME="POSID" SIZE=1 MAXLENGTH=1>

Of course there will be a list of positions in the OSChooser screen, but for now all I wanted to do was pass the variable.

Then, I added an item to the [GuiRunOnce] that output the variable. You could use many methods... here are some.

set VAR=%POSID% (keep in mind that the set variable would only be valid for the CMD session, so this isn't the best method)

batchfile.cmd %POSID% (you could pass the variable to the batch file using the %1 variable, but the problem with this is that it also can only be used at the first start and if there is an error you lose your variable)

BEST METHOD:

echo %POSID%>>file.txt (this is the best method because then the variable or variableS can be called from the file at any time, and not just the first restart)

I found out a little more about how RIS works and that helped me to figure this out. After the CIW the RIS server takes the SIF file and fills in any variables that are available. It then saves the SIF file in it's RemInst\tmp directory as GUID.sif (where GUID is the actual PC GUID). When the PC reboots for GUI mode setup it pulls this file and uses it. I do not know where it saves it but I do know that it is not saved as a SIF file anymore. I was unable to find it at the point of cmdlines.txt by running a CMD prompt, but that isn't important. So, when it starts windows for the first time and runs the [GuiRunOnce] items it launches the command that you specified above (take your pick) and the variable is part of it.

I have been battling this for months. There is not one bit of information about this anywhere. There is little information to begin with for RIS. I have had to figure a lot of it out myself, but I guess that just helps me to understand it a little better huh? This is one of the reasons that I have started my own forum network. I hope to help other to better understand this and many of the undocumented items in Windows.

I hope this information helps at least one person! Let me know if you use this.