There will be three proceeding steps following this introduction of how I created my Windows 7 base image for domain deployment.
I was on a quest to find or improve upon an imaging
solution to upgrade our Windows XP clients to Windows 7. We currently are
successfully using Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 (GSS) imaging
primarily XP clients and will be replacing most of our 500+ clients to
Windows 7 Enterprise within the next month.
As most of the imaging experts know, GSS is replaced by Altiris Deployment Solutions (ADS). Right now purchasing ADS is not a solution. I have setup a WDS/MDT and soon an SCCM server but do not have time to fully implement nor test them before our upgrade timeline.
GSS
is highly capable of handling the upgrade to Windows 7 because
Symantec's web site says so. The upgrades we have done so far using GSS
has not been a major issue.
Now after that background, my goal is to fully automate the process of joining the computer to the domain. That is easy enough! GSS has full support for this via the Ghost Console, when using templates and other Ghost tools. However, many of my other administrators only use GSS's Ghost Cast feature, so training them using the Ghost Console is not viable at this time either.
We have all Dell systems. The models are GX620, 740, 745, 755, 760, 780, 790, 690, PE 850, PE 860, and PE R200. Of these systems the GX620 (audio), 755 (PCI serial and comms controller), and, ironically, the 790, the newest model, (NIC,
PCI serial and comms controller, and SM bus controller), were the only ones that were missing drivers from our base image. The drivers were updated online using an application called Win Toolkit.
Assuming the image is created and ready for deployment after using Windows System Image Manager (WSIM)
to tailor the SysPrep
XML file, and to fully automate a client to join
the computer to the domain with a specific computer name, I need to
accomplish the following:
For Item number 1, this proved a little more challenging than it was for XP. My XP image was able to use a program called compname.exe. Unfortunately, compname.exe does not work for Windows 7 clients. So anther third party tool for renaming clients to the rescue is warranted, wsname.exe. I think this site is no longer being maintained. Well, for some reason, wsname does not appear to be working with some models of our Dell servers (PEs 850, 860, and R200). So I needed another way to get the MAC address and extract it from the text file that had the corresponding MAC address with the proposed computer's name.
This is where the fun begins...
Please see Step 1 of this series here, GSS, Batch Scripts and Windows 7 Reimaging Step 1.
As most of the imaging experts know, GSS is replaced by Altiris Deployment Solutions (ADS). Right now purchasing ADS is not a solution. I have setup a WDS/MDT and soon an SCCM server but do not have time to fully implement nor test them before our upgrade timeline.
GSS
is highly capable of handling the upgrade to Windows 7 because
Symantec's web site says so. The upgrades we have done so far using GSS
has not been a major issue.Now after that background, my goal is to fully automate the process of joining the computer to the domain. That is easy enough! GSS has full support for this via the Ghost Console, when using templates and other Ghost tools. However, many of my other administrators only use GSS's Ghost Cast feature, so training them using the Ghost Console is not viable at this time either.
We have all Dell systems. The models are GX620, 740, 745, 755, 760, 780, 790, 690, PE 850, PE 860, and PE R200. Of these systems the GX620 (audio), 755 (PCI serial and comms controller), and, ironically, the 790, the newest model, (NIC,
PCI serial and comms controller, and SM bus controller), were the only ones that were missing drivers from our base image. The drivers were updated online using an application called Win Toolkit.
Assuming the image is created and ready for deployment after using Windows System Image Manager (WSIM)
 |
| WSIM |
- Retrieve the MAC Address from the client and rename the computer from a text file
- Restart the client
- Join the computer to the domain
- Restart client ready to be used by an end-user
For Item number 1, this proved a little more challenging than it was for XP. My XP image was able to use a program called compname.exe. Unfortunately, compname.exe does not work for Windows 7 clients. So anther third party tool for renaming clients to the rescue is warranted, wsname.exe. I think this site is no longer being maintained. Well, for some reason, wsname does not appear to be working with some models of our Dell servers (PEs 850, 860, and R200). So I needed another way to get the MAC address and extract it from the text file that had the corresponding MAC address with the proposed computer's name.
This is where the fun begins...
Please see Step 1 of this series here, GSS, Batch Scripts and Windows 7 Reimaging Step 1.
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