Question

Vista Automated Deployment Confusion

Asked by: briancassin

I am currently trying to get aquainted with Vista's new ways of deployemnt from XP being that I was used to using Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, and Novell Zenworks Imaging it is a bit confusing what Microsoft is saying in there deployment guides. My understanding is no matter what unless you get BDD 2007 you have to babysit each machine with a USB Key, DVD etc.. and even with BDD the hard drive cannot be blank (new pc direct from factory not preloaded) it must already have an Operating System on it at least this is what it says in there 70-622 Exam Book.

I have also seen this statement in Many Microsoft documents  "Unlike many other image formats, WIM images are file-based, enabling them to be applied to an existing partition non-destructively. This has great advantages in deployment processes, since user state can be saved locally"

Does this mean by default the WIM image will not format the drive it simply refereshes the install ? What about viruses and so forth if the computer was infected reimaging would not remove the infection would it ?   I am used to when an XP computer gets hit with an infection in our environment we use Zenworks and drop a new image on the PC which formats the drive and so forth.

So  I guess my questions are
1. Can Vista actually create a new partition and format the drive during deployment ?
2. Can Vista be deployed to computers with blank hard drives through the network ? (PXE boot etc..)
3. With the new imaging if it does not format the drive wouldn't a virus, malware or such survivie a reimage then ?
4. Can you use Zenworks, Ghost or Acronis to capture a Vista image like you would an XP image and use those tools for deployment to blank hard drives. (since the Vista tools seem like a step backwards since as far as I can tell they do not support deployment to blank hard drives).

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Asked On
2008-08-25 at 11:09:09ID23676059
Tags

Microsoft

,

Windows

,

Vista

,

Vista Deployment

Topics

Windows Vista

,

Networking Security Vulnerabilities

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
9

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Answers

 

by: martin_babarikPosted on 2008-08-25 at 12:07:33ID: 22308173

Hi,
the new way of automated deployment is kind of difficult, but once you will learn it, I guess you will appreciate how it works. As you mentioned the 70-622 exam I would suggest rather this one:
MCTS TK 70-643 Configuring Windows Server 2008 Application Infrastructure.

To your questions:
1. Yes, with no problem.
2. Yes it can be.
3. Actually the malware could possibly survive, but Vista somehow isolates the original OS files - all of them to one folder, from which no file is automatically executed. It's here just to give you the possibility to pick up some files you possibly need from the old OS.
4. It depends on the versions of these tools. I suppose that the vendors of these applications will (or maybe they already did) release the new versions which will support Vista image capturing. I'd say basically the sector based imaging should work regardless the OS, but I'm not sure how the deployment tools you mentioned deal with different boot sequence on Vista.

I have to admit I spent maybe week when trying to make that WDS thing working with no success, because of lack of documentation. But I learnt the basics from the official MS course PDF files which I have access to. And the BDD is another chapter for itself:-) I really hope somebody will write some comprehensive book about new Windows deployment features, as it's not much fun to search the web for each particular task you want to achieve.
Regards
Martin

 

by: briancassinPosted on 2008-08-25 at 17:02:46ID: 22310503

so are you saying the 70-643 better explains deployment ? I am assuming though that it being a 2008 server exam that it is 2008 server centric.

BDD seems like a waste of money IMHO as from what I have read BDD requires there already is an Operating System on the PC you are deploying Vista to which really defeats the purpose of automated imaging unless you can also image a brand new blank machine.

Do you have any links to any info on how Vista can be deployed to a blank hard drive ?

 

by: briancassinPosted on 2008-08-25 at 17:03:08ID: 22310506

increasing points

 

by: martin_babarikPosted on 2008-08-25 at 20:54:12ID: 22311478

One of the topics of 70-643 discusses the basic functionality of WDS.
There is also mentioned the System Image Manager, which allows the creation of the answer files - these can be configured to format the hardddrive.
Here's the virtual lab:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032305603
and one walkthrough
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/eWEEK-Labs-WalkThrough-Windows-System-Image-Manager-for-Vista/

 

by: Mikey_TTPosted on 2008-08-26 at 07:38:05ID: 22315210

Martin is bang on with his response. You can do everything you ask about.

However I thought I would clarify a couple of points. MDT is the replacement for BDD, which has been around for a while now. It's actually within the task sequences of the MDT deployment task that controls what happens in the deployment. (Assuming you're not using other tools like SCCM/SMS)
In that task sequence you can partition and format the disk if you want to, or not if you choose not to.

To be able to PXE boot from the network you will require something like WDS to provide the mechanism for this. That then points to your MDT task sequences which then control the deployment.

When deploying a WIM file down, yes you can save data from the disk but only if it's in a specific location. The c:\minint folder. If you backup files here with something like USMT then you can specify what's saved, and hence limit your exposure to any malware being left on the system.

Richard Smith from Microsoft has a good video walkthrough of the whole MDT, Build, Deploy, WDS scenario here:
http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2008/03/13/microsoft-deployment-toolkit-lite-touch-video-walk-through.aspx

You can also take what Richard has demoed and automate more of the tasks to essentially make a zero touch light touch deployment.

Just to clarify one final point. MDT, BDD, WDS are all completely free. There is no licensing cost to these products.

Mike...

 

by: briancassinPosted on 2008-09-14 at 01:27:36ID: 22471543

Sorry it took me awhile to get back to this

I am going to split points on this 300 to martin_babarik and 200 to Mikey_TT

let me know if you guys agree with this.

Thanks again for your help :)

 

by: martin_babarikPosted on 2008-09-14 at 01:28:56ID: 22471547

hello, no problem, as you feel :-)

 

by: Mikey_TTPosted on 2008-09-15 at 03:39:06ID: 22477194

Thanks, just helping out...

 

by: briancassinPosted on 2008-09-15 at 11:45:20ID: 31489917

Thank You again guys the links helped greatly

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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