Windows Deployment Services

As described in my first post I’m going to use WDS to install the servers I need to test SharePoint 2010 (now on MSDN and TechNet).

So how do we install WDS? Well I’m using Windows 2008 R2 for this installation on a separate server to the rest of my environment. You are going to need an existing infrastructure of Windows Active Directory, DHCP and DNS already installed to make use of WDS.

 

Installing WDS

Windows Deployment Services is a role (as opposed to a feature of Windows 2008 R2) and it can be installed via server manager.

Once the wizard starts for the Add Role you can navigate to and select “Windows Deployment Services” checkbox

• Click next and you can read the WDS Overview
• Next, leave the default of “Deployment Server” and “Transport Server” checked
• Next again and you get a summary of options prior to the installation of WDS finally click “Install”

After a short period of time you should receive a message confirming the installation has been successful and we can move on to the configuration.

Configuring WDS

Once you close the role dialogue box after the installation of WDS you’ll be back to the “Server Manager” interface and have “Windows Deployment Services” added to the Roles list (if you closed Server Manager then Windows Deployment Services is available under Administrative Tools).

The first time you expand out WDS you’ll see your server and it will have a yellow explanation triangle and the main element of the MMC will have a message:



So lets go ahead and configure our new installation

• Right click or under More Actions in the Right Actions Toolbar of the MMC select “Configure Server”
• Read the initial advice and select “Next”. You’ll be asked for a directory to hold “Remote Installation” files, as this will hold images you’ll probably want to change the default from “C:\RemoteInstall” to a data drive.
• Next your are asked about where your DHCP server is installed, if it is on the the same server as WDS then you’ll need to select both check boxes. If your DHCP server is on another server but on the same subnet then don’t select either check box. Anything else and you’ll need to read the help file for further guidance.
• Now you need to determine how you want the WDS server to respond to clients as they boot up and go through the PXE boot process. For most implementations you’ll probably find the last option works best:

The configuration wizard will now copy files to the location you selected earlier for the RemoteInstall directory.

Once the copy process completes you have the option to upload images or you can do this later, which is what I’ll show you in a bit.

Click Finish and you’re returned to the main MMC window and the WDS server will now be green with additional folders created underneath the main element.

 

Post Wizard Configuration

The wizard sets most parameters or asks you for choices as above, but a couple of other settings may need to be changed. From my own experimenting I’d recommend changing the following from the Properties of the WDS Server element in the MMC

• First of all you’ll probably want to create computer accounts in a specific OU of your Active Directory. Select the “AD DS” tab from the Properties of your WDS server
• Under “Computer Account Location” select browse and navigate to the OU where you want your computer accounts to be created. In my environment I’ve created a root OU to hold computer accounts for SharePoint

 

Note: You need to delegate control of the OU you choose to the computer account of the WDS Server so that it can create computer accounts.

• From Active Directory Users and Computers MMC select the OU that you are going to use for the computer accounts
• Right click the OU and select “Delegate Control” to start a wizard
• Select Next then Add
• In the standard AD search box you’ll need to add Computers from “Object Types” then enter the name of your WDS computer
• Click next; then “Create a custom task to delegate”
• Change the default option to “Only the following objects in the folder:” click “Create selected objects in this folder” and then select “Computer Objects” from the list
• Click Next make sure “General” is selected and from “Permissions check Full Control”
• Confirm the options on the Summary screen and click Finish

• You may also want to review how the client machine is handled by the WDS server during PXE boot. PXE boot downloads a small package via TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) to enable the machine to boot via the network card and initialise the WDS boot image.
• I’d recommend handling known clients differently to unknown clients as the latter implies machines that are new and need an OS installed. To review or make changes select the “Boot” tab from the WDS Server Properties:

That’s it for the configuration, we just need to add some images which I’ll cover in my next article.