Adding Vista Security
Updates, Service Packs,
and Language Packs
Next, launch the New Package Wizard from
Distribution Share to add Vista security
updates, service packs, and language packs to
your Vista image: Right-click OS Packages, then
click New. You’ll be prompted for the paths to
the folders that contains these patches; the
wizard will add everything a folder contains to
Deployment Workbench.
Adding Drivers
Launch the New Driver Wizard from Distribution
Share by right-clicking Out-of-Box Drivers,
then click New. The wizard prompts for
the folders that contains the drivers you want
to add to Deployment Workbench and adds
everything a folder contains.
Creating a Build
Up to this point, you’ve introduced to Deployment
Workbench all the components you want
to install on target machines. Now let’s add
those components to the build that Deployment
Workbench will deploy. To begin, launch
the New Build Wizard under Distribution
Share by right-clicking Builds, then clicking
New. The wizard will ask you to create a Build
ID, such as “Vista01” (the ID can’t contain
spaces) and a descriptive Build name, such as “Vista Build for VPs.” A field exists where
you can add comments, and there’s plenty of
room to document what’s in your build and
why. The New Build Wizard lets you choose
an OS to associate to this build (the list of OSs
is based on what you added earlier in the Distribution/Operating Systems node). You can
specify a product key for the OS at this time
or not (you might want someone to enter a
product key for each install). Next, specify the
name, organization, and Microsoft Internet
Explorer (IE) home page that will be used for
all installations from this build. Finally, type in
the local administrator’s password or specify
that you don’t want to use a password, and
click Create.
You can access your build’s properties by
double-clicking the build name under Builds.
The build properties page has three tabs. On the
General tab, you can edit any unshaded properties
and enable or disable the build. The Settings
tab lets you edit Organization name, Full name,
Local administrator password, Internet Explorer
home page, and product key information.
If you’re familiar with Microsoft System
Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), then
you’ve already met the task sequencer, which
lets you add tasks to your installation in the
exact order they should occur. Maybe you
want to add a task (perhaps as another way to
add patches) after the installation is complete.
Highlight the Postinstall node on the Task
Sequence tab, click the Add button, and choose
Task. Give your new task a name and description
and specify the command line to run and
the location to run it from. On the Options tab
of your new task you can choose Disable this
step (I like this for troubleshooting purposes), continue on error, or create dependencies for the
successful completion of this task.
Creating a
Deployment Point
Next, use the New Deployment Point Wizard
to create the deployment point, the location
to which target machines connect to install
a build. To launch the wizard, expand the
Deploy node in the console tree, right-click
Deployment Points, and click New. The wizard
will prompt you to choose from among
four deployment point types: Lab or single
server deployment, the default option, uses the
deployment share on the computer on which
Deployment Workbench is running; Separate
deployment share lets you provide a UNC path
to a server and share of your choice; Removable
media lets you create a shared folder to use to
create images for deployment on removable
media; SMS 2003 Operating System Deployment (OSD) Feature Pack, lets you create a shared folder for creating Microsoft
Systems Management Server
(SMS) OSD Feature Pack images
(I’ll cover this option in more detail
in my next article in this series).
Subsequent wizard pages
prompt you to give your deployment
point a name, choose whether
to allow users to select additional
applications to be installed during
an upgrade, and specify whether to
prompt users to capture an image
of the target computer (for our
sample deployment, clear the Ask
If an Image Should Be Captured check box). Next, specify whether
to prompt users to provide the
local administrator password for
target computers and whether to
prompt users to provide a product
key. Finally, specify the server and share name
of the deployment point, specify whether users
will be prompted to save user state migration
options, and click Create. Nothing substantial
happens just yet, but a deploy.xml file is created
in the Distribution\Control folder.
What really gets things rolling is updating
your deployment point. To do so, right-click
the deployment point name under Deploy/Deployment Points, and choose Update. A
Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Environment
(WinPE) file, LiteTouchPE_x86, is created
in the Distribution\Boot folder and is converted
to a bootable ISO file, LiteTouchPE_x86.
iso. Three files are created in the Distribution\Control folder: Bootstrap.ini contains the UNC
path to the deployment point; CustomSettings.
ini contains your selections in the New
Deployment Point Wizard; TS.xml contains
the task sequencer list of tasks and the order in
which they are to be performed when a target
machine connects to the deployment point.
To see the deployment point’s properties,
double-click the deployment point’s name in
the console tree. The properties page has three
tabs. The General tab, which Figure 4,
shows, displays the deployment point’s name
and type, the UNC and local path to the shared
folder, and the platforms that the deployment
point supports.
The Rules tab contains the settings from the
CustomSettings.ini file that determine which
screens will display during the installation.
You can edit the UNC path to your deployment
point by clicking Edit Bootstrap.ini on the Rules
tab and entering your changes.
The Windows PE tab, which Figure 5 shows,
gives you options for controlling how your
WinPE file is configured. You can generate
a Lite Touch bootable ISO image that contains
scripts for connecting to the deployment
server, or you can create a generic ISO image.
You can also choose additional language support
(i.e., optional fonts), specify driver groups
to be installed, add a custom background bitmap
file for the desktop, and add directories to
the WinPE file.
Deployment
Now it’s time to boot the target machines
and begin the deployment. Target machines
must boot from the WinPE file that the New
Deployment Point Wizard created. You’ll have
two WinPE files by default: LiteTouchPE_x86
.iso and LiteTouchPE_x86.wim. To boot from
LiteTouchPE_x86.iso, you must first burn it
to a CD-ROM or DVD. To boot from Lite-
TouchPE_x86.wim, add it to your WDS server.
Storing this .wim file on your WDS server lets
you PXE boot (F12 for a network boot) your
target computers, connect to the WDS server,
and boot the custom WinPE file.
Whichever method you use to boot the
target machines, your custom WinPE file contains
scripts that direct the target machines
to connect to the deployment point and read
the rules for the installation. With the default
set of rules, the target machines will launch
the Welcome Windows Deployment screen.
On this screen, choose your desired Keyboard
Layout from the drop-down menu, and click Next to start the Windows Deployment
Wizard. You’ll be prompted
for credentials to the deployment
point: The account you use must
have read, write, and execute permissions
to the deployment point.
Click Next. The next pages ask you
to supply the target computer’s
name, credentials for joining the
target computer to a domain or
workgroup, whether you want to
restore users data (e.g., if you had
previously saved users’ IE favorites,
My Documents, and other
settings with User State Migration
Tool—USMT). Next, you’ll choose
a build, choose whether to provide
a product key, and specify
language settings and time zone.
A list of applications that you’ve
added to the deployment point will appear,
and you can specify from the list which applications
you want to deploy. Finally, supply
the local administrator password and specify
whether BitLocker is to be enabled on the target
machine, and if so, where the BitLocker key
is to be stored, then click Create. A progress
box will display, and if you watch it closely,
you’ll see all the steps that the deployment
process goes through. When the progress
bar reports a successful completion, you’ll
have brand-new Vista machines with all your
applications, patches, and out-of-box drivers
installed perfectly—again and again and
again.
End of Article
Prev. page
1
[2]
next page -->
