Deployment Solution

Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I prefer to do HII in DS 6.9 this way, as it is by far the most reliable:

Job 1 

• Base image (OS+SP, hotfixes etc) downloads to destination machine
• Calls job 2 if successful

Job 2

• Uses conditions based on computer model name to copy the appropriate drivers into the OemPNPDriversPath (for XP) or c:\drivers (Vista and 7).  THis is done from pre-boot obviously, either WinPE, Linux or DOS
• Other tweaks such as token replacement etc - then calls job 3 if successful

Job 3

• Any app installs, "bad" driver installations etc etc... you get the drill.

Key thing I have noticed with DS 7.1 is that there are no "conditions" any more...  And I am not sure if the "pre-boot" environment in DS 7.1 can actually pull out the computer model name like DS 6.9 could.  This functionality was key to HII working properly, because DS 6.9 had the ability to image a computer with the correct drivers even if the machine was not known to the DS, because the aclient/dagent was able to send very basic hardware info to the DS, which was enough information for the conditions to function properly.

I am about to commence a 20000 seat design and would prefer to implement DS7.1 if possible, because of the reduced infrastructure requirements (that's another story for another day).  But if DS7.1 doesn't provide condition based functionality, how could I do condition-based deployments for driver management without writing custom scripts?  I can see myself having to write vbscripts for WinPE which read the WMI namespace for computer system to determine the model.  But that's not ideal - DS7.1 should be an improvement, not a step back.

Opinions, thoughts, experiences etc are appreciated.

Yes, you can have conditions.
DS is a solution on NS paltform. And in this case NS provides you to create conditions.
you can boot machine in Automation environment and run your scripts to get hardware information.

in DS 7.1, once Image is deployed, DeployAnywhere task is executed which takes care of your drivers.

Thanks for the reply, but DeployAnywhere is really only meant for Mass Storage and Network drivers.  For other drivers, you often need to install them as applications.  I have seen DS7.1 demonstrated and it does not have conditions in the tasks.  This makes installing drivers rather difficult when you only want certain models should install certain drivers.

I know that I can run scripts, but I am looking for a way to *not* run scripts - this is a newer version after all and shouldn't be a backwards step.  What conditions are you referring to?  I cannot see anywhere in DS7.1 where you can create true conditions like you have in DS6.9.  The only conditions that appear in NS/DS7.1 are simple "task success-do this, task failed-do that"... Not what I'm after.

Ever considered moving to WIM images?  I made the switch a couple years ago and haven't looked back.  Using DISM to inject drivers offline makes the whole process a breeze.  I've heard that DISM has it's faults too but I have 8 different models and it has taken care of loading all of the drivers so when Windows Setup finishes the computer is done with all of it's drivers.  It's not for everyone but it has made my life a lot easier with Vista and W7.

I'm interested in this as well.

I'm setting up DS7.1 right now to test the imaging and PXE Functionality.  So far I don't like DS 7.1.  Unfortunately none of my test workstations show up in the Deployment Portal for some reason.

We need to be able to detect the model of the workstation while in WinpE so the correct drivers are copied to the workstation.  If that isn't possible, we will have to rework everything!

We also have many conditions in our tasks for imaging as we have several child builds.

I'd like more info on the WIM imaging... sounds interesting.  Where would be the best place to learn more about it?

I will be the first to say that getting Altiris setup to use WIM images is NOT fun (at least not the way I do it) but once you go through the pain, it is well worth it.  For one, you get to take advantage of most of Microsoft's tools and you are no longer entirely dependent on Altiris.  For example, if Altiris goes down and I have a computer to image, I don't really care because I can pull out my USB thumb drive with WinPE on it and continue on.  Yes, the Altiris framework of Deployment Server makes it even easier and more robust but my point is that I'm not completely down if Altiris is down or being upgraded or if I want to image at some remote site.

I guess I would recommend reading some of Microsoft's articles on imaging.  This is a fairly good article:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349348(WS.10).aspx  and here is a really good ebook on the subject:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/21312846/Deploying-Windows-7-Essential-Guidance  This ebook discusses WDS and some other items that wouldn't be applicable but hopefully you can see how to pluck out the important pieces such as using ImageX, Windows System Image Manager and WinPE and plug them into Altiris.

Basically to deploy and image, I simply run a script job in Altiris using many of the scripts that you will see in these articles and don't even bother with Altiris's image jobs.  I went down this road because when Vista first came out Altiris didn't have full support for X number of months after it was released and so I had to come up with something on my own and I'm glad I did because now I utilize Microsoft's resources and tools.  I know there are people who think it's crazy to go down this road since Altiris is already providing a solution out of "the can" but what concerns me are the subtle disparities that are popping up between Altiris and Microsoft with regards to imaging.   Microsoft makes the OS so if I'm going to error on the side of caution for the long term it will be with them.  I design things in our environment for the long term (which might seems slightly crazy for a tech world that is always changing.....)   Hopefully this doesn't come across as a rip on Altiris because I greatly value the infrastructure provided by the Deployment Server and completely rely on Altiris for post-imaging tasks such as software deployment, registry changes, etc.

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All useful information.  In this situation, we will be deploying XP anyway so it's not going to help all that much, because we can't use DISM in this place.  Kubasa, I have implemented WIM imaging for other customers on 7 with DISM in a similar way to what you're describing and I agree, it's terrific, but it won't work for us here because we want to use conditions to handle the driver copying.

Kubasa - I do imaging in a similar way to you already and I usually avoid any of Altiris' methods because they are generally version specific and/or have too many dependencies - I agree with you.

Unfortunately, if DS7.1 in baremetal can't get info from computers prior to the computer being known to NS, it means that I'll have to script everything rather than using job conditions like in the past.  Messy, time consuming and harder to support - not impossible though, just a bit messier.

Only one benefit I can see with running on the Ghost imaging engine is the ability to capture PCT data to the local drive and not overwrite it when downloading the image. 

 

Have you had any further dealings with this as yet?

Ww need to build a Universal Image for both Win 7 and XP and while i have it working perfectly with DS6.9, i'm very interested in someone who's got it working with DS 7.1?

Regards Steve

when you create a sysprep image it can be used on other systems too.
if you are worried about drivers, Deploy Image tasks invoke DA once imaging is completed.

thanks..

A little caveat: DeployAnywhere isn't fully featured at the moment (at least when I last tried it out). There were swathes of device classes missing. Mass Storage and NIC drivers seem well accounted for, and perhaps vga. Memory isn't what it once was..... ;-)

what is your consideration for DS 7.1 instead of DS 6.9 Sp4? you are mentioning infra, but how exactly? you are the implementor and you are the one needing to support the environment after the install.

As DS7.1 doesn't have Mac support yet.

As far as infrastructure goes, theoretically DS7.1 needs less infrastructure as it sits on NS.  Sure, you will need MORE NS's, but DS is limited to 5K nodes from a support point of view so you could probably get away with less servers total.

But anyway, we had no choice other than DS6.9 due to Mac support.

Has anyone been able to get conditions created based on "Computer Prod Name" like 6.8 & 6.9? Which gets that information from the BIOS for the Model...

New issue/different environment = new thread.  Include what kind of conditions you're curious about.

Where is some good documentation for using the product?  The documentation that comes with it, isn't really good for how to's