Can the automated install, also install and configure third party software? Where do I learn more about automated XP installs?
The network layout is about 20 groups of about 5 PC's.
IceRaven.
Main Topics
Browse All Topics
Loading Advertisement...
Question
Symantec Ghost 7.5 - Different Chipsets and how to build an image.
I have a mixture or Dell GX270 and GX260 machines. I want to build an Windows XP image that can work on both these machines (They have different Chipsets). What is the procedure to do with with Ghost Corperate 7.5? Is it a matter of having an image with the different drivers? Because I have also had bluescreen problems between machines when the image already had the driver, eg different Modems and the computer would bluescreen until the modem was removed in Safe mode.
IceRaven.
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get
Instant Access to this Solution
- Plus...
- 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
- Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
- Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
- Never be left without tech help again
Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.
- "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
- "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
- "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.
See what Experts Exchange can do for you.
Got a question?
We've got the answer.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
Need individual assistance?
Our experts are ready to help.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Want to learn from the best?
Read articles from industry experts.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Working on a long term project?
Store your work and research.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Trusted by the world's most respected brands.
Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Free Tech Articles
-
WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
-
SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
-
Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
-
Create a Win7 Gadget
This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
-
Outlook continually prompting for username and password
There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
-
Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...
Cloud Class Webinars
- Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
- Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
- IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
- Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
- Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
- How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...
Join the Community
Give a Little. Get a Lot.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
Answers
Do not install the extra drivers. Put them in a folder on the image. Uninstall the hardware that is different, and then make the ghost. When the machine boots up the first time, it will ask for the drivers, and you can point it in the right direction. This way you can use the same image for both machines.
>>Can the automated install, also install and configure third party software? Where do I learn more about automated XP installs?
Yes, as long as the third party software supports a "slient install." I have install packages to put Adobe, Microsoft, WinZip, Exceed and other software on the hosts, and it does this all from a post-install script.
>>The network layout is about 20 groups of about 5 PC's.
Do you mean 100 PC's in all? If so, I would definitely recommend automated installs over Ghost. It's just that the changing hardware and drivers can be a pain to keep up with. If you are talking about 5 to 20 PC's, then you could just use Ghost, as it is definitely easier to work with in the beginning.
check out this area of Microsoft's Tech Net for more information on automated deployment:
http://www.microsoft.com/t
It will cover using enterprise tools too, but you would want to concentrate on the cheaper methods. You can also burn your images to bootable CD or to a network drive and just do an install that is initiated over the network.
you point it the first time you install the hardware, and put both drivers in the same folder. Then it will be pointing there when you boot up the image. Don't forget to uninstall just before you reboot to make the image.
Or you could try putting them in the driver folder.
I don't know the specific path for xp, but nt and 2000 is winnt/system32/driver
should be close.
durindil - Yes I mean 100pc's total.
A deciding factor between ghost and automated installs.
I need to be able to plug my laptop into the switch and have all (or maybe some)of the PC's on that switch image themselves from the image on my laptop. Can this be achieved using ghost/automated install?
IceRaven.
Some thoughts on unatended installations as I was browsing through
----Snip---
Disadvantages of Unattended Installation
You cannot use the unattended installation tools (Winnt32.exe and Winnt.exe) to create reference configurations that include applications and that replicate the configurations across your client computers.
Unattended installation must be initiated by someone who has direct access to each client computer.
--Snip----
So this means that I cannot use thirdpart software as I understand it and also leaves me with the same problem that I currently have with ghost... that I need to touch each computer to re-install it.
I like the idea behind an unattended installation, use an answers file to install your operating system on any hardware at all, however I am worried it isn't flexible enough to install and configure third party software. Is there some more information that you can give me on this?
As I said before, ** as long as the third party software supports a slient install or answer file, ** you can install it with an automated install. I have worked on three large Windows 2000/XP desktop deployments, and have used automated tools to perform installs on over 40,000 desktops (total for all installs.) This was done using SMS or Veritas NetInstall, where we did not have to go to each desktop. These are expensive tools, however, so without them, you will have to visit each desktop. The good thing, is that you can make one CD or CD set, or one image on a network drive, and go to each desktop and just kick off the install. You would then have to re-visit the desktop only to get the CD or to make any user-specific changes (if you had a security office that had a special tool, for example.)
The desktops are locked away in metal boxes that need to be unscrewed, so I really need a solution that does not require the computers touched. Ghost appears to do this once the client is installed on the machines they use a virtual boot partition which means I do not need to touch the drive. I am presumeing that SMS and Veritas NetInstall use similar technology. Do you know of any software that would do this for around the price of Ghost?
IceRaven.
If cost is your main factor, then Veritas Netinstall is the only solution near it. Actually, Microsoft licenses Veritas Netinstall to use in their remote desktop installation. With any of them, you will have to install a client portion to communicate with the remote server, unless your network adapters support PXE boot, and you have a boot server installed on the subnet (this is for machines that have no OS on them.) At my current client, I did not do the desktop configuration, but they have all of the desktops (about 6,000) boot from the network and run an in-house script from a boot server to perform a desktop OS install. Obviously, not all of them install, just the ones without an OS. A hardware tech installs the machine, puts a password on the BIOS, and sets the boot to network boot. If there is no OS, it will begin a network install.
I have never been able to get around 2 different chipsets successfully but if your new to ghost here are some basic steps using ghost console
Your best bet is to just go ahead and setup 2 images. Setting up the silent install(suggested earlier is too much trouble.
If these are workstations setup and connected to the network follow theses steps.
1.) Create an image of each type of machine. Including all software that will be common to the computers. If there are any computers that need more or less software you should create install packages with ai builder. Make sure that you take the computers out of the domain before you create the images. If you have xp on your image you will want to manually take the computer out of the domain then reboot the machine as opposed to allowing ghost to take the computer out of the domain.
2.) Install the ghost client out to the machines through the ghost console. Make sure that with console you have the appropriate network drivers for the workstations that you a setting up in the boot wizard.
3.) Once your image and ai packages are setup within ghost you will be able to push them out in a task.
No, the main thing that you want done when imaging is for the sid and the name to be changed. When setting up an imaging task through console there is a check box you can check for the sid to be changed for you. As far as the name goes, you can set the name several different ways.
You can also run the sid changer tool (included with ghost console) manually if you want to from a boot disk. The executable is ghstwalk.exe.
As far as I am aware you must do the Ghostwalk or Sysprep your o/s before imaging. Otherwise when you extract your image onto another machine it will prevent you from logging on because your hardware does not match the SID. Sysprep removes the SID for regeneration next boot up, this is only applicable to windows nt/2000/xp if you're planning to ghost 98/me then you don't need it.
I am trying something similar. I have a GX240 Loaded with all of the applications, etc and I need the same information loaded on a room of GX260s. What do I need to do to my GX240 before I create the image so that I can Ghost it on to the GX260s or Laptops for that matter? I know it can be done, but the last guy to do it is gone and I don't know what he did. I'm on Windows 2000.
THanks!
To Easy ..
just get Sysprep and put in in the Root of the GX240 and run it. make sure u select the two options 1/ Mini setup 2/ Pnp .
that will allow the SID to be changed on each PC and also allow for the key and user details to be added for each PC.
When done u will have all computers the same and no Problem with SID's or different harware.
Easy. I do this all the time using Multicast
PS let me know how you go.
3 Ways to Join
Business Accounts
- Perfect for organizations
- Multiple users
- Save over 36%
- Create a Business Account
Answer for Membership
- Earn free access
- Showcase your knowledge
- No credit card required
- Sign Up to Answer
Loading Advertisement...
by: durindilPosted on 2003-11-24 at 05:24:20ID: 9810171
Why not just build an automated install using Windows XP? You just need the copy of XP and you add your other drivers to the drivers directory on the installation CD that you make (or install image on a server.) This takes more time to set up than Ghost, but when you get a new type of hardware, you just add new drivers into the directory, and can use one image for all of your machines. Since it does take more time to set up, I do not recommend using it for installations of 10 machines or less. As an added bonus, you will know the automated install portion of the MCSE exam inside and out.
If you have a lot of machines, you can even create an automated, distributed insatllation, and combine with an enterprise management system such as SMS, to do literally thousands of machines. I have done this for large clients, where they had 20,000 to 25,000 desktops.