Ghost Solution Suite

Newbie here, so bare with me please.  In our environment we have been using Ghost along with PXE to run our imaging.  We just installed a newer version of ghost and it comes with Ghost Boot Wizard and we are looking into using WinPE.  I have a couple of questions.  We already have images created (.gho) files that we would like to crank out for imaging purposes.  Can these be implemented into WinPE?  If so, how?  Also going through a quick setup of WinPE I notice that it saves the file names as .wim files.  Where do you implement those .wim files?  I guess a rundown on how to use WinPE and Ghost togeher with a PXE server and Tftpd32 installed would be a good place to start.  I am just at a loss with all this and dont knwo where to begin.  Any help would be great.  Thanks!

Hi there,

You current images are good. The boot environment does not alter the images, so you may freely alternate and take the image with PC-DOS and deploy with WinPE, or vice-versa. I am going to recommend this setup for using a WinPE PXE setup:

 How to use the 3Com Boot Services (and SolarWinds TFTP) with Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 using WinPE
As for the *.wim files, you should not need to directly manipulate those. 

Good luck!

Thank you,

Randy

Ok great, thanks.  I guess I am just confused on exactly what WinPE does and what you do with the .wim file once you have it.  Like I said in my previous post I am just at a loss for how all this works.  Thanks for your help though. 

 

How will I know if WinPE loads?  I followed your directions but it does not appear to look any different then what we normally did in Ghost?  Should something load before the Ghost Casting screen pops right up?  I am just not seeing any difference.  Thanks

Do you mean boot from network F12 then Winpe then ghost?

If you do then you need to add the Winpe to Windows deployment Services under boot images, the pc dos boot for ghost should be listed under the legacy images. you need the right winpe with ghost included.

We never bothered, but we may in the near futhure as we are looking at adding the Win7 boot image to WDS for the awkward pcs that are missing all the network dos drivers in ghost.

Leon

Ghosty,

Windows PE and PC-DOS are going to work pretty much the same on the surface. We are still loading the Ghost executable, just in a different boot environment. If it loads, you will see Ghost. WinPE, for the purposes  that we are using it, should basically be functioning like a 32bit alternative to PC-DOS. You will know if it loads if you see the Ghost executable. There will be a blue-green background behind it, but the Ghost executable will look the same.

Thank you,

Randy

Thanks for the help,  I know which screen you are talking about, but I cant seem to have it show up before it starts to ghost.  I am not sure what I need to do.  I have gone over the steps multiple times but right away it loads ghost and starts imaging instead of opening WinPE and giving me the command prompt.  Is there a guide out there for using Symantec Ghost Boot Wizard w/WinPE + TFTPD32 + 3Com PXE?  I just feel like I have set something wrong up, possibly in the BOOTPTAB Editor.  Like I said this is all new to me so I really appreciate it.

Here is the article on that setup:

How to use the TFTPD32 TFTP Server with Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 to distribute Windows PE packages via PXE.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/on-technology.nsf/docid/2008092410084360


Thank you,

Randy

Ok well I have got it figured out now, one other question though when I created all the .wim files and did some test runs it keeps all of them listed in the Windows Boot Manager where I select the .wim file I want.  Some dont work anymore because the .wim file have been removed.   Is there a way to not have all of the test/junk ones show up in the Windows Boot Manger?  It says Choose an operating system to start Ghost Windows PE.
Thanks!