In the previous articles I guided you through several tasks in Altiris Deployment Solution. In addition I also explained how to use several third party tools to develop the coolest Windows XP and Windows Vista images. But I never explained how to build and deploy these images to your clients.
In this article I'm going to help you how to create an image that you can use to deploy to all your clients. Be aware that the options mentioned in this article are all for Deployment Solution 6.9. This version contains options that are not available in the previous versions.
First we create a folder named Create Image.
Inside that folder we create a job also named Create Image. When we now open the job we are going to add the function Create Image to it.
Now we have to choose our Imaging tool. We see the following options:
- Rdeploy (*.exe;*.img) (Text Mode)
- Rdeploy (*.exe;*.img)
- ImageX *.wim
- Mac Image (*.DMG
- Symantec Ghost (*.gho)
For most of these we do not need additional parameters. Only for the Symantec Ghost option we need additional parameters. Happily for us when you select that option the correct parameters are already set for us. The parameters are: clone,MODE=create,SRC=1,DST=%IMAGE_FILENAME% -sure
In the name tab browse to the location where you want to store the image. Please keep this inside the eXpress Share. This will make it easier for you to deploy the image later because that mapping already exists on the WinPE boot.
Then you have to give the image a unique name. If you have more images, give the image a name that can be found easily. Like Windows-XP-date or something.
Now we have to define if we need Sysprep. The image you create will have the same computername and SID as the computer you use to create it from. If you do not use Sysprep and you roll out the image to other machines they will all have the same name.
This can cause new computers to lose the network connection.
To prevent us from having multiple computers with all the same names, we select Sysprep.
In the field for Operating System you now see the line Add new. Select it.
Now you will get a new wizard. In the dropdown box select the operating system where you want to use this create image from.
The following operating systems are defined:
- Windows 2000 Professional
- Windows 2000 Server
- Windows NT Server 4.0
- Windows NT Workstation 4.0
- Windows Server 2003 Datacenter
- Windows Server 2003 Datacenter IA64
- Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64
- Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
- Windows Server 2003 Enterprise IA64
- Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64
- Windows Server 2003 Standard
- Windows Server 2003 Standard x64
- Windows Server 2003 Web
- Windows Server 2003 Web x 64
- Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
- Windows Server 2008 Datacenter x64
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64
- Windows Server 2008 IA64
- Windows Server 2008 Standard
- Windows Server 2008 Standard x64
- Windows Vista Business
- Windows Vista Business x64
- Windows Vista Enterprise
- Windows Vista Enterprise x64
- Windows Vista Ultimate
- Windows Vista Ultimate x64
- Windows XP Professional
- Windows XP Professional IA64
- Windows XP Professional x64
The next option is your license key's. Fill in the license number you have. All the computers will have the identical license number you fill in here. This only works when you have a license agreement or open licensing from Microsoft. If you have OEM license numbers that are delivered with the various computers, you can add all the licenses inside this field. Altiris deployment solution will use the numbers from top to bottom. Make sure you always type the number with the quotes like:
"xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx"
For Windows XP you need to give in at least one number. For Vista you can select the option use existing number. This will give all clients the identical number as you have inside the image.
Now you can select Next to go to the next screen.
In this screen you are able to create your own master return codes. I do not use that in this job.
Our job to create an image is now ready.
If you are using HII tools, we have to do some more.
In that case we have to create a task inside the job that will help us collect the drivers.
Create a job create HII image. Now create a task and select add, run script.
Add the following command to the script:
REM Flag OS Version
REM This allows for automatic driver detection during image deployment
echo.NT%PROCTYPE%.%#*"SELECT SUBSTRING(os, CHARINDEX('.', os) - 1, 3) FROM computer WHERE computer_id = %ID%"%>%SystemDrive%\OS_Ver.txt
echo.%#*"SELECT 'SP' + SUBSTRING(os, CHARINDEX('Service Pack', os) + 13, 1) FROM computer WHERE computer_id = %ID% AND CHARINDEX('Service Pack', os) > 0"%>>%SystemDrive%\OS_Ver.txt
Now create the second task as described above.
The first task will set the OS version and the service pack, where the second task will create the image.
When you have created the image you are able to deploy this image to one or all of your clients. Remember that if you want to deploy this image to a large group of computers, Deployment Solution will only run 5 computers at the same time. Every time when one computer is finished Deployment Solution will start the next computer. This made me able to deploy over 500 computers in one night. And the best of all, I was sleeping at home. I just created a VPN connection to the deployment server and started the job on over 500 computers. Then I went to sleep. In the morning Deployment Solution enabled me to remote start several of these clients, so I could check if everything went well.
I only lost one machine.
When you deploy this image to hundreds of computers that have the same hardware we do not need to use HII, but when your computers vary in hardware, you better should use HII. This will prevent you from loosing computers because they get the wrong network interface.
When you have more operating systems, it is best practice to create a Create Image job for every Operating System. So if you have Windows XP, Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate you need to create 3 jobs.
In that case you have to think about a kind of a naming convention for your images. This will help you identify the correct image. If you name them image-1, image-2 and image-3, you will not know what the images contain.
Never run one of the Create Image jobs on multiple computers. Altiris Deployment Solution will kick off the job on all the computers and eventually you have a corrupt image file. And then you also have to sort out what the image contains.
These are all things you have to think about before starting with this kind of very strong solution.
Deployment Console, Part 11: Use Vlite to Build a Windows Vista Image