One of the best actions Altiris Deployment Console can do for you is to do a bare metal installation. This only means that you are able to install Windows on a machine that has no hardware installed.
The process that is followed is that the machine gets a preboot environment form the PXE server and then starts a Windows PE image. Then Windows XP is streamed into the harddisk and next time the computer boots it contains your own image.
All computers deployed this way are identical. When you do this manually, the slightest difference can cause errors.
After Windows XP is deployed you have to configure the machine.
In a normal deployment environment you need to manage various images for the hardware you have. So you have one image for a desktop and one for a laptop. If you have Acer, Dell and HP laptops you will have to build an image for each brand and type of laptop. You will need a very big hard drive on your deployment console, and if you use the multi site configuration all these images have to be distributed to all sites.
CondorMan has create a very cool tool that helps you in the process. It is called HII tools.
HII tools is a great way to create an image that can be deployed to all other computers by using Altiris Deployment Solution. On the Juice you find various articles about HII, and you also find the download there. But configuring and using it is not that easy. So let's see if I can make it understandable.
First of all you need to download it. Click on the link to get the latest version. This version is intended for Deployment Solution 6.5 or 6.8, but can also be used in the 6.9 environment. I'll show you how to do this. https://www-secure.symantec.com/community/download/3344/hii-tools-321-deployment-server-68-68-sp1-and-68-sp2
The download is only 1.26MB. Put it on a disk, and unzip it. Then you will see executable.
So let's start.
Click Next to continue.
You have to agree with the license agreement or else it will not work.
First error. It's a simple one. Just click Yes to install. It will not harm or damage your computer.
Select the Operating System you like to use with the HII tools. Don't worry Vista is not in, but it will work. Just select the Windows XP and Windows 2003 32 bit operating systems. Of course you may also use all the others or only one.
Select the Windows install directory.
Be sure that the whole installation disc is on the remote directory.
You have to do this step for every version you marked in the previous step. Make sure you have all the correct versions with the correct service packs.
Not the whole disc is copied. HII only needs a couple of files and copies them from the disc.
After the copy action is done, HII creates some shortcuts.
Click Next to continue.
Now you see why I chose to create a SA password in the previous articles. It makes these steps much easier.
If you have the Deployment console already started and the database is on the local server it will use the correct ODBC settings and you will not get the screen for the credential.
Instead the internet explorer will start and show you the Juice site where the quick start for HII tools is located.
Next step in our process is to follow all the steps in the article CondorMan placed on the Juice. That is the site that comes up during the installation. HII Tools Quick Start
You have to finish these steps before going further. It is very wise to read the article carefully. It gives very good tips and explains the process further.
Also you will get a wizard asking you the first step to make.
I first collect my drivers into the library.
Give in the administrator name and the correct password.
Click Finish.
Now the drivers are collected, I select No. I'm finished for now.
When you have successfully finished all the tasks, you will find a new folder with shortcuts in start Program Altiris Deployment Solution HII.
There you see the various tasks.
The HII Job Wizard will show you the screen below.
Here you can collect drivers, create a Hardware Independent Image or deploy it. Every action will become a job inside the Deployment Console.
Let's create the job to get a Hardware Independent Image.
Give the job a name. I name this job Windows XP HII to see that the job is created with HII.
Select the path were to store the image.
I place it in the eXpress share in a the images folder. This will ensure the image will be replicated over the other Deployment Servers.
Click Finish and then select No when the job is built.
The second job in HII tools is to manually add drivers.
When you click this, a DOS screen comes up. First you have to add the drivers manually to the driver sort folder and then you press enter in the DOS screen. The job will extract the drivers and place them in the right location.
The driver sort folder can be found in the following path C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\HII
The job wizard can also be started from within the Deployment Console by going to tools and select HII Tools.
You now have implemented HII tools for Windows XP and for Windows 2003. To make it even better we also going to add the HII job for a Vista image.
This task is very well explained in the article also by CondorMan:
Install Drivers and Packages to Vista in WinPE.
Follow all the steps to perform this also.
Now we are finished with the first part of this exercise. Let's go to the second part and start using HII tools.
We have to be aware of some facts.
Every new machine that differs in hardware needs to be prepared. If you buy a new portable or a new computer you can do two things. You may copy the driver disk to the driver sort folder and do the action manually or you can use the driver collect steps delivered in HII.
New computers and/or laptops are always preinstalled with the correct windows version. Just boot up the computer and start the preinstalled installation wizard. When this is completely done, add the computer to the active directory under a name that makes it easy for you to delete it later. I name it newcomp. Then install the Altiris Agent on the computer.
Now it also shows up in the Altiris Deployment Console.
Drag and drop the job collect drivers on the computer name and run the job. All the drivers are now collected and stored into a database. As soon as you start deploying your own image to the computer, it will recognize what drivers it needs and takes them from the driver database.
When you have deployed the image, and all drivers are installed, you only need to reconfigure the computer. That can be easily done by clicking reconfigure in the deployment console and fill in the correct settings you need for that machine.
Also you can use sysprep to let it automatically configured.
Make sure you have the correct drivers for the computer. So if you wish to deploy XP, you need the XP drivers and when you need to deploy Vista you need the Vista drivers.
If you miss a driver, you see it in the hardware tab on the computer. It will try to download the correct driver from the internet. If this is working fine, or you have to add a driver manually because you have a better or newer version, don't forget to run the collect driver wizard again. That will ensure your driver collection stays up to date.
When you just start with HII, it seems to be a lot of work. Collecting drivers, creating images, testing everything. But when that is finished you have a very cool tool to do your work with.
This fifth article helps you installing, configuring and start using HII tools. Our next step in getting the best and coolest deployment solution is to automate our jobs. So the sixth article will help you build a job to rollout Service Pack 3 for XP. It will show you how to build a script to do an action for you. You will see how we build the various tasks and how we do the error handling.
Deployment Console, Part 4: Configuring Microsoft DFS for Deployment Server File Synchronisation
Deployment Console, Part 6: Automating Tasks to Build the Coolest Deployment Solution