Deployment

zetec452

zetec452

zetec452

Soldato
Joined
15 Sep 2003
Posts
9,454
Hey,

I'm looking at a deployment project.

I have machines of varying manufactures' and chip sets in which I would like to try and automate Windows XP deployment for. I cannot use PXE boot or anything over the network but can use CD / USB pen. These are requirements in which cannot be elaborated on. We currently image these machines but with varying software versions it has become quite unmanageable.

My current idea was to nlite XP and incorporate the drivers for the machines onto the CD and kick installations off once XP was installed. However this appears to be a little hit and miss with conflicting drivers and can take a while as the machines are not always of a high specification.

Any other suggestions or ideas for me to investigate would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Jon
 
mdjmcnally said:
If they are going to be dumb enough to place such a restriction on you then gather one of each machine and make an nlite cd for each type of machine, with the drivers for each machine on the nlite cd.
Click to expand...

The restriction is in place as there are over 18000 of these units around the world in which need setting up periodically and do not have local servers for PXE boot.

nlite is good and I have been using this with sysprep however I need to reduce the amount of media we have to setup machines. This is probably the only route and I'm open to other suggestions.
 
Thats the idea at the moment but I am having driver issues as their are so many. Plus the machines generally don't have DVD's. :o.

Tis all fun though.
 
We already use extensive batch files and programs to install our applications after. Most of the chipsets are installed via xp anyway (mainly ATA and SATA drives and intel chipsets). As long as the NIC drivers are in order I should be ok.

The USB boot will be out as we have some old machines that won't boot from USB. :(.

Thanks for the ideas though, everything is worth looking into. :)
 
umm. After getting four machines to work on one xp disk I was asked about the license restrictions of nlite. Unfortunately as nlite is only licensed for personal use and is therefore out. :(.

Despite this I feel I can conjure something up using sysprep and driver installation software. Not all bad but a bit of a pain.
 
This is not about money or software here. These machines are ATMs and cannot be PXE booted or provisioned via software on site due to security reasons and protocol from banks.

Once the software is installed the machines are patched and managed via our software through the banks IT staff.

An engineer needs to go to site with the ATM, set it up, stick a few cds in and have it ready. No PXE, no ghost no nothing. Just cd's. We don't manage the engineers and they have very limited "IT" knowledge and therefore have to be fairly blind to the installation process.

See the issue now? ;)
 
Hey,

We already have the installation automated over 6 cds fully automated. However it is quite hardware dependent currently.

I'll take a look at your thread, it looks interesting. Thanks.
 
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