Ghost Solution Suite

Hello,

We're currently under the process of migrating our existing novell infrastructure to a Microsoft domain based upon Windows 2003 server R2.

In order to integrate our 400+ clients to the active directory, we've started to install the missing "Microsoft network client" and the "file and printer sharing for microsoft networks" service on each client. all 400+ client are already equipped with the 2269 ghost client and can be managed through the GSS console.

What i'm looking for is a way to deploy those 2 network components through a task.

Is it possible, and how would you do it ?

thanks in advance for your help.

Everything is possible, but in order to understand the requirement, it would help if you were to specify in detail what steps are required to complete the configuration. Please include filenames and destination folders. Enabling file and print sharing is considered a security risk in most companies - is there a reason you wish to do this?

Hi Edt, and thanks for your interest.

Basically i wanted to remotely install the "Microsoft's files and printers sharing" services, and also the "Microsoft's network client" component.

After reading a couple of interesting threads (http://bit.ly/xHZKzI and http://bit.ly/AaWa5d), i managed to script the installation of the required components. Just for the sake of answering my own question, here's what i did:

I'm using Microsoft's snetcfg, which is part of the original Windows 2000 driver deployment kit. The resulting script looks like this :

REM install microsoft's network client
cmd /c c:\temp\snetcfg_wxp.exe -v -l C:\windows\inf\netmscli.inf -c c -i ms_msclient

REM install microsoft's files and printer sharing services
cmd /c c:\temp\snetcfg_wxp.exe -v -l C:\windows\inf\netserv.inf -c c -i ms_server

REM These services can be uninstalled using the switch "-u"
REM instead of the full "-v -l C:\windows\inf\netrass.inf -c c -i"

Then i'm using symantec GSS to perform a simple files transfer, and launch the executable + the associated script. The script works well on XP Sp3 clients.

You raised an important point, as to why i would enable file and print sharing, since we wasn't using microsoft's network components previously. Isn't it mandatory to be able to use symantec GSS to the fullest ? (inventory purpose, remote ghost client installation, etc....?)

Attachment(s)

snetcfg_wxp.zip   4 KB 1 version

I do not believe that you need the file and print sharing option enabled - I would recommend you test with everything enabled then turn bits off and retest.