Speaker: Rhonda J. Layfield (deployment MVP, speaker, author, trainer and journalist)
Subject: WDS.
Quick survey: More people are using WDS than have deployed Vista at work. Not many deployed Vista out of the full room.
Rhonda says she is writing a book on her own: WDS, WAIK, MDT, ACT and volume activation. I knew she had plans. Great to hear this is on the way; it’ll be a good read. Rhonda’s chapters in the Mastering Windows Server books in the past have been excellent and practical.
There are quick start guides for WDS on the way.
LOL – Rhonda not touching WSIM because “it’s a half day issue”. Very understandable because that’s when all the questions will fire up.
WDS requirements:
- Active Directory
- DHCP (make sure DHCP server and WDS are both authorised in the DHCP console by an enterprise admin). If WDS server is also DHCP server then you are prompted to create two 2 DHCP options. Be aware of this because you will need to do this manually if you forget.
- DNS
- NTFS partition for the images
It is strongly recommended that you do not store your WDS images on the same volume as the operating system.
When you are setting up a pre-staged computer object in AD then pad the start of the GUID/MAC with 0’s until you have 32 characters. You cannot continue with the dialog until you have exactly 32 characters. Ouch – demo Gods were unkind to Rhonda and her demo of authorising new machines didn’t work out first time. The WDS Server(s) must have permission to create computer account objects in the relevant OU/container. Admin must have r/w permissions on the RemoteInstallMGMT folder.
Delegation of domain join can be done with a registry edit on the WDS server. However, non-English DC’s can cause problems because group names might include non basic characters, e.g. á,ó, etc. Use just a-z, 0-9, etc.
WDSUtil is the tool you’ll use to add a VHD to a WDS server. It takes a while to add the image.
Permissions for the Service Control Point must be correct for WDS to work. Use ADSIEDIT.MSC. OU=Domain Controllers -> CN = WDSSERVER –> CN=WDSServer-Remote-Installation-Services Properties.
Network Issues
W2008 WDS increased block size from 512 bytes to 1,456 bytes. If your network has TFTP block size of less than 1,456 bytes then this breaks WDS. Install KB975710 + add REG_DWOWR MazimumBlockSize (value 512-1456 based on what your network can handle) to registry (missed the key – go search for it).
If WDS is on a different subnet to the client then you can configure option 66 and 67 to tell the client where the WDS server is.
If WDS is also DHCP then configure option 60. Set up “do not listen to option 76”.
General
Renaming WDS: WDSUtil to uninitialize and initialize it.
ImageX doesn’t require a Sysprep. Of course, WDS capture does. If you forget then the volume to capture dialog will be empty. Sysprep generalize Vista and Windows 7.
LOL – Rhonda got confused by WDS capture like I did. Even if you choose to store the image on the WDS server you must create the image on a local volume – this requires sufficient space. It also takes much longer than an ImageX capture because it does some verification (cannot be turned off).
Use image groups: create specific ones for OS versions and architectures, e.g. Windows 7 x86, Windows 7 x64, Vista x86, etc. This allows single instance storage between WIM files in the image group to save significant disk space.
Tip for WinPE: Don’t create your own. Use the ones from boot.wim from the sources folder in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 DVD. Try to always use the latest on because it has support for all of the latest operating systems. Using a legacy one for a new OS gives you an “Operation failed with 0x80070002 The system cannot find the file specified” error. This event applies to SP1 versions!
WDS will try to use IGMP v3 and then fail back to V2 when doing multicast. Work with the network team to configure routers and switches.
Remember that PXE is broadcast based. So DHCP needs to be forwarded on the network in multiple VLAN networks.
good afternoon, hopefully you will see this comment. I have a question about this part:
“Rhonda got confused by WDS capture like I did. Even if you choose to store the image on the WDS server you must create the image on a local volume – this requires sufficient space. ”
Is there a way to get around this part? When I capture the image, it is also capturing the copy of the image stored locally. So the my images are basically doubling in size. They’re big enough as it is; I don’t need to add another 10-15 GB to it. If I set up another partition, and saved my local copy to that, do you think I could capture an image of just my C: drive? thanks
the capture tool makes a snapshot of your volume before it starts creating the .wim file if im correct therefor it won’t include the image file stored locally into your captured image
No.
Joe,
I just create a task sequence to capture the image and run the litetouch script from local machine UNC \\xxxxx\deploymentshare\scripts\litetouch.vbs and it pulls image to server. hope this helps. Then again we may be doing things differently.
my WDS server has full connectivity with the main DC, but it seems to have some problems as I can’t start the WDS service in the “services.msc”. Plus I can’t either configure my WDS server – giving unexpected errors. So, simply is there any simpler way to shoot this trouble, or I have to reinstall the whole operating system???
Best you search forums and/or contact MSFT.