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How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

  • 1.  How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 05, 2012 11:20 AM

    I'm having a great deal of trouble with this, and not all that network proficiant so need some help here if possible?

    We use Ghost 11.5

    I create and restore images through ghostcast server and then on the client machine with a usb boot stick using mulitcast. This works fine no problems whatsoever. This has been working fine on the same network as everyone else until it was decided that this needs to be done off the network as once I do 3 machines at a time I knock the phone's out.

    So I have a windows 7 Ultimate PC, running Ghost Server how can I get this to work off a network connected to an 8 port hub, with client machines connected also so I can ghost withough affecting the companies internal network.



  • 2.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 05, 2012 12:12 PM

    Have you essentially recreated your existing Ghost server onto a new machine?  If so, you will need to reinstall the Ghost clients on your machine so that they point to the new server.

    If you are booting off a USB stick, why not put your image on the USB stick as well, and image entirely off the network?



  • 3.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 06, 2012 04:20 AM

    Thing is this is ghost server isn't so much a server than a Windows 7 Machine running ghost server, where I use the ghost boot wizard to create the USB boot stick and then multicast when boot stick has loaded ghost on client machine to have the image restored I will do this on 2-3 machines at the same time on our companies network which as throttles connections and throws are phones into a tizzy.

    The Windows 7 computer I use for the ghost server is still the same computer I will using but now it is in a different room, not connected to the network but connected to a 8 port hub/switch where I wish to have the client machines to be ghosted to also connected and multicast at the same time.

    So maybe the question should be reworded to "How do I get the ghost clients to see the ghost server and vice/versa when the ghost server is no longer connected to a network, I would assume DHCP or something like that would need to be setup?"



  • 4.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 06, 2012 04:30 AM

    Essentially, you need to provide a similar environment in your imaging lab as existed in the production network. However, instead of setting up a DHCP service, you could adopt static IP addresses and just allocate a different IP address to each usb stick.

    Are you booting DOS or WinPE on your usb sticks?  



  • 5.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 06, 2012 04:44 AM

    I was using just the one stick, as I found once the ghost software had been loaded into I could remove and insert into the next machine to boot too.

    I was booting DOS.



  • 6.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 06, 2012 08:16 AM

    If you want to use just the one stick, then you will need to set up a DHCP service so that each network connection gets a unique IP. As USB sticks are cheap, it may be simpler to use one per machine and have a unique static IP assigned to each stick.



  • 7.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 06, 2012 09:07 AM

    Yes and this is where I am stuck, can you help with doing this? if you cannot I probably could create individual sticks.

    How would I go about this? Do I give the server computer a static IP and then do the sticks get setup to look for that IP to connect to? 



  • 8.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 06, 2012 11:13 AM

    Do you have anyone nearby who can help you with this?  I will try to explain but a detailed tutorial is beyond the scope of this forum.

    To configure Windows 7 to act as a DHCP server is possible, but involves the use of internet connection sharing and if I recall correctly, also needs more than one NIC in the machine. You could also use third party software but I have no prior experience of doing this so can offer no guidance here.

    Assuming that this is a private network and not connected to a workplace LAN, you need to determine an IP address range and subnet mask.  What I would suggest is to set your Windows 7 machine's network card parameters to use an IP address of 192.168.0.1, and the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0

    You can leave the default gateway undefined as there is no gateway to anywhere else on a private LAN.

    You then have the following range of IP addresses you can use for your USB sticks:  192.168.0.2 through to 192.168.0.254.

    Consequently, you would need to configure your first USB stick to, say, 192.168.0.2, your second stick to 192.168.0.3, your third stick to 192.168.0.4, and so on. In each case, the subnet mask would be set to 255.255.255.0

    Once you have done this, the rest should behave as before.



  • 9.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 07, 2012 10:28 AM

    No sorry I have no one nearby to support me on this, it is not something that has been needed before. 

    I have given the compuer with the GhostCast Server on an IP address of 192.168.0.1 and subnetmask of 255.255.255.0

    I created one stick to test which I gave the IP 192.168.0.2 and subnet mask 255.255.255.0

    and now I'm getting Program too big to fit into memory error on the client machine when booting from the stick???



  • 10.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 07, 2012 10:41 AM

    That is the problem with DOS - you are limited to the 640K area of base memory, less whatever memory may be reserved for video operations where an embedded video controller is used.

    How experienced are you with DOS ?  If you could post the config.sys and autoexec.bat files from your USB boot device, I may be able to optimise the memory footprint.



  • 11.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 07, 2012 11:11 AM

    Autoexec.bat 

     

    @echo off
    SET TZ=GHO+00:00
    prompt $p$g
    \net\netbind.com
    if exist MOUSE.COM MOUSE.COM
    echo Loading...
    CD \GHOST
    GHOST.EXE 
     
    Config.sys
     
    DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\net
    DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos
    DEVICE=\net\E1000.DOS
    LASTDRIVE = Z

     



  • 12.  RE: How to setup Windows 7 PC off a network to mulitcast

    Posted Nov 07, 2012 04:00 PM

    There is no evidence of any upper memory manager in config.sys, so you are indeed stuck with just the base 640K memory.

    Check your DOS image to see if there is a copy of HIMEM.SYS available.

    Then add DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS as the first line of config.sys.

    For the subsequent DEVICE entries, try DEVICEHIGH and watch for any load errors. Not all drivers will load high, but if they do, it releases some base memory for use by other files.

    In AutoExec.bat, stick a REM in front of the line which loads the mouse driver, to stop the mouse driver loading. This also releases some memory and you can still drive Ghost using the keyboard rather than the mouse.  You can also try loading the mouse driver high which preserves the driver without using base memory.

     

    To load the mouse driver high, try if exist MOUSE.COM LH MOUSE.COM

    Again, if the mouse driver will not load high, remove the LH

    You can stick a LH in front of the netbind line, so it looks like LH \net\netbind.com

    If netbind does not load high, then remove the LH.

    Yes, it does involve some trial and error, but it is usually possible to free up enough base memory to get the DOS stack working again.

    Moving to WinPE as the boot environment gets around all these memory issues that you get with DOS and also provides a mechanism for using windows drivers to support modern hardware which DOS is increasingly unsuitable for. 

    Make sure you have run LiveUpdate so that your Ghost version is at 11.5.1.2266