Windows Vista Zero Touch Installations with BDD

To create an OS image installation CDROM in the SMS Administrator console, rightclick Image Packages and choose All Tasks, Create Operating System Image Installation CD. The Operating System Image Installation CD Wizard launches. On the Installation settings page, ensure the only two options selected are Allow installation of Operating System Packages from SMS Distribution Points and Automatically choose the OS Package to install by running a custom program or a script, and click Next. On the Install from SMS distribution points page, choose Vista Ultimate, Next. On the Automatically select Operating System Package page, for File name, enter \\Server1\ZTI$\ZeroTouchInstallation.vbs, for Arguments enter /debug:true, then supply the User name and Password for the user account that has full control over all of the SMS and BDD files (domainname\username) and click Next. On the Windows PE settings page accept the defaults and click Next. Then, on the Create Image page, type in the name VistaOSDCD and the filename VistaOSDInstall. Click Finish to create a VistaOSDInstall.iso that can be burned to a CD-ROM that you can use to boot a bare-metal machine.

To perform a PXE boot and connect to a WDS server, you’ll add your ZeroTouchInstall. wim (this is created automatically when you create your BDD deployment point) to a WDS server. There is one caveat when it comes to ZTIs and WDS integration: The WDS server must be compatible with the older version of WDS called Remote Installation Services (RIS). To have a compatible WDS server, you must first install RIS (go to Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, Windows Components, and scroll down to RIS), then upgrade using the WINDOWS-DEPLOYMENT-SERVICESUPDATE- X86.EXE hotfix found in the WDS folder of Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). If you’ve already upgraded your server’s OS to XP Pro SP2, you no longer have the option to install RIS. So, if you want to exercise the PXE boot option for ZTIs on bare-metal machines, I suggest that before you upgrade all of your servers to XP Pro SP2, you retain one to install RIS on.

Upgrading or Refreshing the Target Machines
What happens on the target machines? In an upgrade scenario, BDD runs a ZTIPrereq. wsf script. This script confirms that a target machine is running an upgradable OS (XP Pro SP2 or later, Windows 2000 Professional SP4). It also checks for the following installed software: SMS Advanced Client for SMS 2003 SP2, Windows Script Host 5.6 or later, Microsoft Core XML Services 3.0 (MSXML), and Microsoft Data Access Components 2.0 (MDAC). After the ZTIPrereq.wsf script determines that the minimum requirements are met, the ZTIValidate. wsf script runs to ensure there are enough resources available to deploy the new OS. These resources include 512MB of RAM and enough hard disk space for the image to be deployed. It also makes sure that the current OS isn’t a server OS. In a refresh scenario, the ZTIValidate.wsf script requires that the current OS has been installed on the C partition and that the C partition is the first partition on the first disk of the target computer.