Windows Deployment Services Boot Process

So, as I mentioned in my last post, WDS has been installed and we can PXE boot. Yesterday I managed to get the database configuration working correctly, so I thought I’d post an outline of how the PXE boot process is going to look, and how it will benefit IT. Once we receive the new machines from the manufacturer, I’m going to run a script that populates database with individual machine keys, since we’re not using Volume Licensing. The script will grab the key from the Vista install and update the MDT database, in the machine specific table.

1. The user (or admin) presses F12, bringing us to the WDS boot menu.
2. There are two choices listed: Default and Custom. Default boots after 5 seconds.

Default:

• Default boots using the username/password/domain information stored in the Boot.ini file on the boot image. It then looks inside CustomSettings.ini for the database information from which to pull from. CustomSettings.ini also contains set variable values which are applied if there is no setting in the database for them. In this portion of the boot, WinPE queries the computer hardware information, and searches the database for information specific to that model in the Make and Model table. It then searches the Machine Specific settings, grabbing the Vista key for that particular machine. Lastly, it looks in CustomSettings.ini for any values which may not have been put in the MDT database. WinPE then installs Vista with the appropriate applications, settings, and image configured in the database. The machine name will be WS (for the workstations) and the asset tag we’ve asked the manufacturer to embed in the BIOS. So we end up with machine names such as WS8000, WS8001, NB8100 (for notebook), etc.

Custom:

• Custom boots up using the default username/password/domain stored in Boot.ini. The installation process will be virtually as unattended as Default, except for a few exceptions.
• The user will specify whether to run the Deployment Wizard or to cancel out to Command Prompt.
• The user will have a choice of applications to install.
• The user will be able to assign a machine name.
• The user will be able to specify which task sequence to run
• The user will be able to specify whether to capture an image
• The Custom boot image will also contain various tools and utilities on the image, allowing administrators to run them from the command line. This gives IT an increased ability to troubleshoot and repair problems, were Windows Repair not able to fix it.

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