Windows 7 was just recently released to the General Public and has been in the hands of TechNet and MSDN subscribers for a while before that, and one of the features that I have been utilising lately is “XP Mode” which is a glorified version of Virtual PC as we have known it in previous releases.  Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 (not to be confused with Windows Virtual PC 2007) is actually one of two pre-requisites for XP mode with the other being “Hardware-assisted virtualization (HAV)”.  HAV are processors with the Intel VT, AMD-V or VIA VT feature which will need to be enabled in the conputer BIOS.

A couple of enhancements of XP mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 over legacy Virtual PC 2007 include the ability to run XP compatible applications in what other desktop virtualisation vendors refer to as “unity” mode,  i.e. the ability to launch applications directly from the Windows 7 start menu that are actually installed on the XP virtual machine itself. The second enhancement to Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 is the ability to utilise HAV to increase performance of your virtual machine which I have been impressed with to date.

As much as we would like to run an application on Windows 7 natively we know that this may not be feasible as there will always be legacy applications that may not work natively with newer operating systems.  Windows “XP mode” is dubbed as the last resort in assisting organisations in migrating to the latest and greatest operating system to date.

So let’s begin the setup by first downloading an Intel utility which will check if the computer processor supports HAV and if this setting is enabled.  You can download this utility from the Intel site here; http://www.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/

The utility when launch will look like the below;

Click on the CPU Technologies tab.  Note that in this case the Intel Virtualisation Technology is already enabled.

If you have an AMD processor then you will need to download the AMD Virtualization Technology and Microsoft Hyper-V System Compatibility Check Utility here; http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/AMD-V_Hyper-V_Compatibility_Check_Utility.zip

Microsoft have also released their own detection tool since XP Mode was released to manufacturing and can be downloaded from here; http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0ee2a17f-8538-4619-8d1c-05d27e11adb2&displaylang=en

This tool is a lot simpler and will look similar to the below when launched;

Please be aware that in some cases you may need to enable HAV from within the computer BIOS.  Now that we have HAV in check we can proceed with the setup of XP Mode on our Windows 7 machine.

The next step is to install Windows Virtual PC  which you will need to download first from the Microsoft site here; http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Begin by launching the executable.

Click Yes.

Accept the license terms.

Click Restart Now to finalise the installation of Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7.

The second installation that is required is Windows XP Mode.  This can also be downloaded from the Microsoft site here; http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx (Follow steps 1-3)

Click Next.

Select your location and click Next.

Click Finish to finalise the setup.

We are now ready to launch Windows XP mode for the first time in which it will begin a “one time” configuration process setting up our virtual machine.

We can do so by navigating to the Windows XP Mode shortcut. From the Start menu, click Windows Virtual PC, and then click Windows XP Mode.

Accept the license terms and click next.

Please note that if your machine is not HAV compatible or has not been enabled for HAV you will receive the following error message;

“Unable to start Windows Virtual PC because hardware-assisted virtualization is disabled”

Continuing on with our installation of XP mode you will be prompted for the installation folder and the “XPMUser” password.  This “system created” user is used to log into the Virtual Machine automatically when booted up and run the installation applications within in.

Click Next

Select “Help protect my computer by turning on Automatic Updates now”

Click Next

Click Start Setup.

Setup will begin installing Windows XP with SP3 with the end product looking similar to the below screen capture;

The new virtual machine is now ready for you to customize it by installing the applications you want to use. After you install the applications, you can open them directly from the Start menu of your Windows 7 host operating system as per the below screen capture.  As this is considered as another machine that is connected to the network via NAT (default), I would ensure that the latest Windows Updates are installed and that an antivirus package is also installed to keep the machine secure and clean.

Hope you have found this article useful.  In summary, the setting up of Windows XP Mode consists of  three parts.  The first part installs Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 with the second part installing Windows XP Mode on the computer. The third and final part to the jigsaw is always required. It sets up a virtual instance of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 (SP3) as a virtual machine, allowing you to install your legacy applications that can then be accessed via your Windows 7 start menu.

Don’t forget to subscribe to future articles via your RSS reader and follow me on twitter @georgekhalil.

Welcome to the final article in this series on Windows Deployment Services, WAIK and Windows 7.  Our first articled introduced WDS and its configuration with parts 2 and 3 focusing on our beloved WAIK tool and Windows System Image Manager and the creation of our XML answer files.  We conclude the series by introducing one of the enhanced features in WDS and Windows 2008 and that’s the ability to inject driver packages and have them deployed to our client computers along with the install image.  Note that this functionality is only available when you are installing images of the following operating systems: Windows Vista with SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

I have on purposely left this discussion to the end in order to determine what driver packages need to be added to the WDS server and this could only be determined after deploying our first Windows 7 Image via WDS to our various hardware.  After the initial deployment I would log onto the machine and launch the Device Manager MMC and see what devices were not detected by the Windows 7 install.  From experience, these will primarily be audio and/or video drivers that you will need to download from the manufacturers support site.  Since Windows 7 has just been released into the market, many vendors such as Dell and HP may not have released Windows 7 certified drivers for their older fleet, however I have found that Windows Vista drivers are compatible in most instances.  So let’s begin the process!

My Windows 7 install image was deployed to a Dell Latitude D630 in which Window 7 did not detect the video adapter so I went forth and downloaded the latest “Vista” drivers from the Dell support site. The Dell drivers are wrapped in a nice executable for installation, however because we are injecting these drivers via WDS we need to extract the contents of the executable which will contain the .inf file that describes the package.  The .inf file includes a list of the files that make up the package (and their locations), and is included with the driver installation program. Generally, the .inf file is located on the driver installation media in the same folder as the Setup program, or in a subfolder.

We can easily extract these via WinRAR by right clicking on the executable and selecting Extract to <foldername>.

Once we have these files extracted we can proceed and add the driver package via WDS, so let’s navigate to the WDS Management console and right click on drivers and select “add driver package”

Browse for the .inf file that we extracted earlier via WinRAR and click Next.

Double click on the package details and click on the second tab “Drivers” to confirm that the correct drivers are being distributed.

Continuing will then proceed and add the driver package as per the below screenshot.

We will not place the “driver packages in a driver group” at this time and we will not  “Modify the filters for this group now.”

We can now click on Finish to complete the Task.

We will now follow the instructions as per the above screen capture and invoke the “Add Driver Group Wizard” by right clicking on the Drivers node.  Type a name for this driver group similar to the below screen capture.  In most instances you will create driver groups for different makes and models.

Click Next.  Now click add to select a filter type.  I will be creating a filter based on manufacturer as listed in the BIOS.

You can find this information on the client computer using the System Information tool (Msinfo32.exe). To open this tool, click Start, click Run, type msinfo32.exe, and then click OK. This value is listed as the System Manufacturer.

Click on Add

Now that you have located the Manufacturer you can add the parameter as per the below screen shot.

You also have the ability to be specific with regards to applying these drivers based on the selected install image.  Because I only have the single Windows 7 install image I will leave this filter blank and continue.

Leave the default option of “Install only the driver packages that match a client’s hardware”.

Click Next.

That’s all that is to it.  The next time you deploy an Install Image that meets the BIOS manufacturer’s parameter it will inject the necessary drivers for Windows to freely use.  It sure beats the legacy method of creating $oem$ folders etc and hoping that the drivers are correct.  As you can see, WDS in Windows 2008 R2 simplifies matters dramatically and the driver validation process is comforting to an IT Pro, ensuring that you have the correct drivers selected.

This comes to the conclusion to our 4 part series in which I hope you have enjoyed.  Don’t forget to subscribe to future articles via your RSS reader and follow me on twitter @georgekhalil.

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Articles in this series

1. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 1/4 (Installation and Configuration of the WDS Role)
2. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 2/4 (Creation & Configuration of WDSUnattend.xml)
3. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 3/4 (Creation & Configuration of ImageUnattend.xml)
4. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 4/4 (Injecting Drivers)

We are back again and in today’s article we will continue our efforts in automating our Windows 7 deployment via Windows Deployment Services utilising the WAIK tool and the creation of our XML Answer files.  In Part 2 of this series we focused on the creation of the WDSUnattend.xml file that is required to automate the Windows Pre Execution Boot for our WDS clients and took care of the partitioning of our disks.  If you missed part 2 of this series, you can access it here. Today we continue our efforts in utilising the Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) to create our ImageUnattend.xml which will be specifically designed to automate the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) of our Windows 7 Enterprise install.

In our last article I introduced WSIM and the steps required to create an answer file.  I also went into some detail regarding the 7 distinct sections that make up an answer file that reflect the 7 possible stages in the deployment of your operating system, in our case Windows 7.  As you recall these stages are referred to as Passes and you may not necessarily need to utilise every single pass in an XML Answer File.  Our WDSUnattend.xml file that we created in Part 2 primarily focused on the windowsPE pass however our ImageUnattend.xml that we are creating in this article will utilise the specialize and oobeSystem passes.  So let’s begin!

Launch WSIM and select File / New Answer File.  The first area that we will focus on is the specialize pass which we will provide details for the automation of the joining of the machine to the domain.

The minimum components and passes required for our ImageUnattend.xml are listed as follows;

As a refresher, I will go through the process of adding our first component (Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup) to our Answer File Pane and it’s required settings.  Recall that I went through this process in some detail in part 2 of this series.

Right click on the required component and select Add Setting to Pass4 specialize.

This will then appear in the Answer File pane as follows;

We will make the following changes to the properties of the Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup component as per the below screen capture.  You will notice that in the ComputerName section I have specified “*” as I am letting WDS do the naming under the AD DS tab of the properties of the WDS server.

In the below screen capture, I have specified a Client Naming Policy under the properties of our WDS server.  The following format GK%03# will name my machines in the following format; GK001, GK002, GK003 etc.

I have listed the rest of the settings in text form for the components listed in the table above.  These are as follows;

In summary, the oobeSystem settings above (Windows Out of Box Experience) automates the initial configuration tasks that end users normally encounter when installing Windows 7 or Windows Vista.

The above settings are the required minimum settings to fully automate the Windows 7 Enterprise “install” image, however you can add other components such as setting a default theme (Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup\Themes).

The complete Unattended Windows Setup Reference can be found in the WAIK help area and on the Microsoft TechNet Site here.

Once you have completed adding any further settings to your ImageUnattend.xml file you will need to validate your settings and then save the file as “ImageUnattend.xml”.

We will now navigate to your WDS server and launch the Windows Deployment Services Management Console.  Expand Servers and then your Server Name and  click on Install Images.  Our Windows 7 Install Image should be listed as per the below screen capture.  Recall that this was added in Part 1 of this series when we first configured our WDS Server.

Right Click on our Image and select properties.  Under the General Tab, click on select file and browse for the ImageUnattend.xml file that we saved earlier.

We have now applied our WDSUnattend.xml which automates the WDS Pre-Execution Boot (part 2 of this series) and our ImageUnattend.xml which automates the OOBE of our Windows 7 “install” image.

Now is a good time to review your WDS Server settings within the Windows Deployment Services Management console by right clicking on the server and selecting properties.  Under the AD DS tab you can specify your Client Naming Policy and specify your Computer Account Location.  Also ensure that your WDSUnattend.xml file that we created in part 2 is applied to the Client tab – Unattend file settings area.

We are now ready to rock and roll and attempt to deploy our first Windows 7 Image via PXE boot.  When your machine is starting up press the relevant Function key combination to access the network PXE boot which should then detect your WDS Server and then press F12 again to launch the Windows PE Boot Image.

Once the boot.wim has completed loading, you will receive the below screen capture, allowing you to select your Windows 7 Install Image. If you have multiple Install Images they will also be listed here.

Click Next.

That’s it!  Your installation will now continue without any user input as this is taken care of by our ImageUnattend.xml file.

This concludes this part of the series.  In our next and final article I will show you how to inject any necessary drivers that may have been missed by Windows.  I have left this to the end as it is only until you deploy your first Image to your new or existing hardware that you will be aware of these missing drivers.

As always, if you would like to be notified of future articles, you can do so by subscribing via RSS, or have articles directly sent to your email by subscribing on the right navigation bar.

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Articles in this series

1. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 1/4 (Installation and Configuration of the WDS Role)
2. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 2/4 (Creation & Configuration of WDSUnattend.xml)
3. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 3/4 (Creation & Configuration of ImageUnattend.xml)
4. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 4/4 (Injecting Drivers)

Welcome back to the second part of this series and in the next 2 article’s I will be focusing our efforts on creating the necessary xml answer files to automate the deployment of our Windows 7 image via Windows Deployment Services (WDS).   In part 1, I provided you with step by step instructions on installing and configuring your WDS role on your Windows 2008 R2 machine. If you missed it, you can access part 1 here. Our focus in today’s article revolves around the creation of the WDSUnattend.xml file that is required to automate the Windows Pre Execution Boot for WDS clients.

Our tool of trade for today is the Windows Automated Installation Kit (commonly referred to as the WAIK or Windows AIK), and this was first introduced by Microsoft when Windows Vista was released for IT professionals assisting them with the deployment of Windows Vista.  It’s primary focus is to create the necessary answer files to deploy and customise the Windows install image and to also automate the WDS side of things or what is commonly referred to as windowsPE, more on this later.  Windows System Image Manager (also referred to as Windows SIM) is the actual tool required to create the XML answer files and is part of the WAIK.

The first thing you need to do is download the WAIK for Windows 7 which is quite a hefty download (1706.6MB) and can be accessed from the Microsoft Download site here.  Included in the WAIK as mentioned already is the Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) amongst other tools such as documentation, the Deployment Imaging Servicing and Management Tool (DISM), the User State Migration Tool (USMT) and the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT).

Once you have downloaded the WAIK ISO you can easily burn the disc image using Windows 7 Disc Image burner and then install the entire package on your “technician computer”.  Typically the technician computer is another PC that must be running Windows 2003, Windows Vista or Windows 7.  The below welcome splash screen is what you will see when you begin the installer.

Click on Windows AIK setup to begin the installation.

Click Next

Agree to the terms and then click Next.  The installation is pretty straight forward after this point.  Once the installation has completed you can then launch the Windows System Image Manager application which is located under the Microsoft Windows AIK All Programs folder.

We will now need to create our working folder and copy the install.wim from our Windows 7 source media, typically I will create a folder on the technician PC and call it Windows AIK Distribution Share.

Once we have created our folder and copied across our install.wim we can now proceed to open our image via Windows System Image Manager, File / Select Windows Image.  Browse to the Windows AIK Distribution Share that we created and select the install.wim file.  At this instance you will receive the below warning in which we will click Yes.

It will now proceed and create the catalog file that is required.  This process can take a while and will only need to be completed once.  Please note, If the WIM file contains multiple images then you must select the image to open from the WIM file (e.g., Windows 7 BUSINESS or Windows 7 ENTERPRISE).

Upon completion, your catalog will be created and the components and packages will be listed under the Windows Image pane located on the left hand corner of WSIM.

We can now proceed to create our first answer file by clicking on File / New Answer File.

You can see that the Answer File can potentially be made up of 7 distinct sections as per the above screen capture.  These are 7 possible stages in the deployment of your operating system whether it be Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 2008.  These stages are also referred to as passes and you may not necessarily need to utilise every single pass.  Because we are utilising WDS for our deployment of Windows 7, we will be required to create 2 XML Answer files using WSIM and these will be named as follows;

• WDSUnattend.xml (This will automate the windowsPE which encompasses the login to our WDS server, the creation of our partitions, selecting the partition to install Windows 7, and the language to run setup in.  The WDSUnattend.xml is eventually attached to the Client Tab of the properties of your WDS server.)
• ImageUnattend.xml (This will primarily automate the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) of your Windows 7 Install Image.  These are the screens that you would normally fill out after the first boot of your system, such as the creation of a local user account.  The ImageUnattend.xml is eventually attached to the General Tab of the Image Properties in WDS).

So let’s begins with WDSUnattend.xml.  Part 3 will discuss the ImageUnattend.xml in a lot more detail so stay tune for that article.

Now that we have created our Answer File albeit a blank canvas we need to inject the various components for our WDSUnattend.xml.  You do so by expanding the components under the Windows Image pane and then right clicking on the required component and inserting the relevant Pass to our Answer File.  At first sight this may seem to be very daunting as there are so many components that need to be matched off to the correct Pass.

The Components and Passes required for our WDSUnattend.xml are as follows;

Please note that when expanding the components list, ensure that you expand the component to the lowest level before adding the setting to the relevant Pass.  This ensures that the selected setting and all its parent settings are also added to the answer file in the single step.

Our first component required is the “Microsoft Windows International Core-WinPE”.

As per Microsoft’s documentation, Windows Preinstallation Environment (commonly known as Windows PE) is referred to as a minimal operating system designed to prepare a computer for Windows installation. It can be used to:

• Start a computer with no operating system (a bare-metal system)
• Partition and format hard drives
• Copy disk images or initiate Windows Setup from a network share

We will be automating the WindowsPE via the WDSUnattend.xml Answer File that we are just about to create.

I will begin by locating  our first component Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE\SetupUILanguage as per the below screen capture and right click and select the appropriate Pass.  As you can see the only Pass available to me is “windowsPE” and by selecting this pass it will add the component to my answer file under the Answer File navigation pane.

We can now fill in the details of the component that we have just added on the right navigation pane.  In the example below I have specified the InputLocale, SystemLocale and UserLocale to be "en-AU" for Australia.  Please note that you can click F1 on any parameter field to reveal your options from the help file.

We also need to specify the subcomponent SetupUILanguage as per the below screen capture.

So to recap on what we have just achieved, we have entered 4 settings in our answer file.  As you can see from the Microsoft Windows International Core-WinPE component we had 3 settings to fill in and a sub component “SetupUILanguage” that also needed a setting entered as per the below;

The next steps involved are 2,3 and 4 from our component list which is all about configuring our disk and preparing it for install.  As part of any Windows setup process when you boot into Windows PE (pre-execution boot) you are provided with the opportunity to create and format disk partitions preparing it for installation.  In order to automate this process, we need to specify these details in our WDSUnattend.xml answer file.  We will now focus on the below highlighted components.

As per our previous exercise, we will need to inject the necessary components into our Answer File and this case we will start by adding Microsoft-Windows-Setup\DiskConfiguration\Disk setting to the WindowsPE Pass as follows.

Right click on Disk Configuration and add setting to Pass1 windowsPE as per the below screen capture.

This setting will now appear in the Answer File pane within Windows System Image Manager.

We will now right click on DiskConfiguration and select Insert new Disk. The details area for Disk will now need to be set so the WillWipeDisk is set to true.

We will now right click on Create Partitions and select Insert new create partition.

We will now proceed and create our Windows Partition and then we will need to Modify the Partition specifying details such as Label, Drive Letter and File System Format.  Your results should look similar to the below screen captures.

Answer File Structure

Create Partition Details

Modify Partition Details

The last component that we need to inject is Microsoft-Windows-Setup\WindowsDeploymentServices\ImageSelection\InstallTo providing details on which partition our Windows 7 Image should install to.  Again, we will right click on the Microsoft-Windows-Setup\WindowsDeploymentServices\ImageSelection\InstallTo  component and select Add setting to Pass1 windowsPE.

The settings required for the above component is captured in the below screen shot.  We have simply specified that our eventual Windows 7 image will install directly on the first partition of our selected disk.

In summary, the below are the above settings in text form;

We have now completed the settings and passes required for our WDSUnattend.xml Answer File which we can now save.  Upon saving your xml file, Windows System Image Manager will check for any warnings or errors.

We will now apply the WDSUnattend.xml file to our WDS server as follows.  Navigate to the Windows Deployment Services Management Console and right click on your Server object and select properties.  Click on the Client tab and select Enable unattend installation and you will notice that you will need to specify a separate WDSunattend.xml file for the differing architectures.  Select Browse and navigate to your saved xml file and then click on Apply and OK.

We have come to the conclusion of the second part of this series and have successfully created and applied our WDSUnattend.xml file to your WDS Server, automating the PXE boot.  In the next article we will focus our efforts in creating an ImageUnattend.xml file which will be applied against our Windows 7 image or commonly referred to as our  “Install” image automating the Out of Box Experience.

Stay tuned!  If you would like to be notified of future articles, you can do so by subscribing via RSS, or have articles directly sent to your email by subscribing on the right navigation bar.

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Articles in this series

1. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 1/4 (Installation and Configuration of the WDS Role)
2. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 2/4 (Creation & Configuration of WDSUnattend.xml)
3. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 3/4 (Creation & Configuration of ImageUnattend.xml)
4. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 4/4 (Injecting Drivers)

I have been known to be at the cutting edge of technology, early adoption of Microsoft technologies is a must and this time round nothing is going to change.  I first played with Windows Deployment Services (WDS) back in the day when it was referred to as Remote Installation Services (RIS) and had first exposure to the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) back when it was in beta and so was Vista at the time.  I took the plunge and deployed Windows Vista using Light Touch deployment via WDS and the WAIK a month after Vista was released to the enterprise and today I will be providing you with step by step instructions on how you can do the same with Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.

In this 4 part series I will begin my focus in providing you with instructions in setting up your WDS role on a Windows 2008 R2 server, with part’s 2 and 3 focusing on utilising the WAIK to create your necessary xml files that are needed for light touch deployment and finish off our setup in part 4 by introducing the capability to inject any necessary drivers to your original “install images”.  This article is assuming you have a Windows 2008 R2 server ready to rock and roll with, so let’s begin!

With the introduction of Roles and Features there is no need to have the Windows 2008 R2 media at hand as all roles and features are included in the initial installation albeit inactive. In order to setup WDS navigate to Administrative Tools / Server Manager and click on Roles on the left navigation pane and then click on Add Role on the right navigation pane. This will invoke the Add Roles Wizard that we have become familiar with in Windows 2008.

Click Next.  Select Windows Deployment Services as your Server Role.

Click Next.  One of the many things that Microsoft have improved upon lately is their thorough explanations when deploying roles and features within Windows 2008.  Below is an introduction to Windows Deployment Services and things to note regarding the configuration and installation.

Click Next.  The below role services are automatically checked.

Click Next.  The below confirmation screen is displayed.

Click Next. The installation will now proceed with the results displayed as per the below screen capture.

Once the installation has completed, navigate to Administrative Tools / Windows Deployment Services. When you click on the server node you will receive the below warning message;

Windows Deployment Services is not configured.
This server is not configured. To configure this server, first verify that you are a local administrator.

Right click on the server and select configure server.  The below wizard is invoked.  You will need to ensure that the below pre-requisites are met before WDS can become functional.

Click Next.  Select your Remote Installation Folder Location.  As per the below description, ensure that you choose a partition that is large enough to hold your images.

Click Next.  Select your PXE settings.  You have the option to prestage your client which is when you create a computer account object in Active Directory Users and Computers and map this computer object to a physical computer.  This then becomes a known client.  In my example below I have selected Respond to all computers for simplicity.

Click Next.  The server will then go through the configuration process until you receive the below confirmation.  You now have the ability to add your images to the server.  I will leave the Add images to the server now checked which will invoke the Add image wizard.

Here I will add the Windows 7 boot and install images.  These images are originally located under the sources folder on your Windows 7 DVD.  The two files that you need to locate are, install.wim and boot.wim.  In my example below I have copied these 2 files to the WDS server under C:\Windows7 Images.

You now have the option to select an existing image group or create a new one.  I have gone ahead and created a group called Windows 7.

Click Next.  The wizard will detect my 2 images, 1 boot being the boot.wim file and 1 install install image being the install.wim file that I had copied from the Windows 7 media to my image path below.

Click Next.  The images are now added to the server and will be listed as per the below 2 screen shots.

Below is the Windows 7 install image added from our media.

Below is the Boot image added from our media.

This concludes the first part of this article.  In part 2 of this series we will shift our attention to the Windows Automated Installation Kit otherwise known as the “WAIK” where we will concentrate our efforts in automating the PXE boot by creating a WDSunattend.xml file and then continue in part 3 by automating the Out of Box experience on our Windows 7 install image by creating an Imageunattend.xml.

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Articles in this series

1. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 1/4 (Installation and Configuration of the WDS Role)
2. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 2/4 (Creation & Configuration of WDSUnattend.xml)
3. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 3/4 (Creation & Configuration of ImageUnattend.xml)
4. Windows Deployment Services, WAIK & Windows 7 – Part 4/4 (Injecting Drivers)

Well, it sounds like a life time ago that I first started investigating the next and greatest thing since sliced bread, yes Windows Vista.  After a 5 year gap between operating system versions, there was a lot of hype around Windows Vista and how much better it is than Windows XP.  Many argue against that and have not yet gone down the route of implementing Windows Vista into their networks or on their home PC’s.  XP has better start up times, ummm, yes if you are running XP on today’s hardware, but how about we run XP on a Pentium 4 with 256 RAM and compare that against Windows Vista on current hardware…… you get my drift. 

It will be 2 years next month that I went live with Windows Vista and deployed it on my network of over 100 machines.  Was it smooth sailing? Did we have any application compatability issues? Did my printers stop working? Did everyone think I was crazy?  Well, nobody goes in with a blind eye and there were many months of testing and re-testing and piloting before I took the plunge.  However, after the long nights and some hair pulling moments I am happy to say that I have not looked back and even with the slight hiccup here and there I would be more than happy to manage a Windows Vista network over a Windows XP network any day.   Are you sold yet?  Okay enough with the ramblings, the reason for this post isn’t about Windows Vista, but about Windows 7 and how much better it is than Windows Vista.. even in it’s beta stages!

Well, you have probably guessed it, I am already running Windows 7 as my primary work machine and I can’t rave more about it!  I am sure you have read the publicity around Windows 7 being the saviour for Microsoft and I am not disagreeing.  I am sure Windows 7 will bring a lot more faith to end users who have been scarred by Windows Vista bad publicity.  It’s been over a month and I am more than happy with the way Windows 7 is progressing.  It’s snappier, more responsive with a few nice touches.  I won’t go into them in too much detail but have provided you with a link to the Microsoft Windows 7 Engineering Blog who have listed some changes to expect in RC.