Fully-Automated Installation Design Background

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

You can design your RIS installation to occur in the fully-automated mode, so that no user input is necessary other than logon credentials. To automate installations on remote boot enabled clients, you can use the alternate RIS boot file Startrom.n12 to automatically start downloading the CIW after the RIS client successfully accesses a RIS server. When this occurs, the user initiating the RIS installation does not receive a prompt to press the F12 key for a PXE boot. Instead, the fully automated installation of Risetup or Riprep images proceeds silently after the user logs on.

To enable a fully automated RIS-based installation, it is necessary to substitute the Startrom.n12 boot file for the default Startrom.com boot file. There are two different ways of doing this, depending on the configuration you want:

Rename the files

To configure all clients serviced by a RIS server with an automated installation, rename the startup boot files as follows:

  • Change Startrom.com to Startrom.bak

  • Change Startrom.n12 to Startrom.com

These files are located in the following directory location on your RIS server:

RemoteInstall\OSChooser\i386

You can change the names of the startup boot files manually or you can do this remotely from any computer in the RIS domain by using the change boot file script. To find this script, see the Remote Installation Scripts link on the Web Resources page https://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources.). You can also run this script locally on a RIS server. By specifying the "automated" or "interactive" command arguments with the script, you can toggle the names of the boot files back and forth to support the default interactive mode or the automated mode, as appropriate. Once you configure the names of the boot files, all clients contacting the RIS server receive the same installation mode.

Assign Startrom.n12 to specific clients

If you want to configure automated installations on certain clients only, you can specifically assign them the Startrom.n12 file as the startup file. However, you only have this level of control by using the prestaging script. This script prestages RIS client computer accounts in Active Directory using an Excel spreadsheet generated by the BIOS information script to provide input data. In the spreadsheet, you can add information to specific data cells to configure which startup file each prestaged RIS client should receive. To find these scripts, see the Remote Installation Scripts link on the Web Resources page https://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources.).

Important

  • If you change the name of the startup boot files on a RIS server and you also prestage client computers with specific startup file configurations, client computers might not receive the correct startup file. To avoid this problem, either configure startup files with the prestaging script or change the name of the startup file so all clients contacting the RIS server receive the same boot file. Do not use both methods simultaneously.

For more information about designing Active Directory support, including prestaging by using scripts, see "Designing the Active Directory Infrastructure" later in this chapter.

Also, when using Startrom.n12 as the startup file, a repetitive installation loop can occur in some situations. This can happen with PXE-enabled client computers that have their BIOS boot configuration set with the network adapter as the first boot device. It can also happen with non-PXE-enabled clients that have their BIOS boot configuration set with the floppy disk drive as the first boot device.

When you use the Startrom.n12 file to automate image installations, it causes client computers that are powering up to immediately initiate a PXE boot, whether from the RIS boot floppy disk or the network adapter — providing that the BIOS boot sequence is set to allow this. When using Startrom.n12, if the boot sequence is set so that computers boot from a PXE-enabled device or the RIS boot floppy disk, every reboot initiates a RIS installation. By contrast, the RIS default startup file Startrom.com provides the client with the option of performing a remote network boot to RIS, which allows the client to avoid the installation loop.

There are two ways to circumvent this problem with automated installations:

  • Use the preferred method of altering the BIOS boot configuration of RIS clients so they always boot first from the hard disk and then from the device that boots to RIS.

  • Rename the startup files to the default configuration before clients complete the text mode portion of the setup process (after image download), at which time a reboot occurs. For more information about defining new CIW screens and OSC variables see "CIW Design Tasks" later in this chapter.

If you change the boot sequence in the BIOS of RIS client computers so that the hard disk is set as the first boot device, you must also disable the master boot record (MBR) on the boot partition of the hard disk to intentionally cause the first boot attempt to fail. This way, the next boot device in the sequence is the device that boots to RIS over the network, using either the RIS boot floppy disk or a PXE-enabled network adapter. When the text mode portion of the setup process is complete, the disabled disk partition is rebuilt and automatically reactivated to prevent further PXE booting.

To support automated installations on RIS clients, you need to disable the boot partition on each RIS client you want to receive an automated installation. To do this, you can use a tool such as Diskpart.exe, which you can find in the System32 directory of a computer running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1. The syntax to run Diskpart.exe is as follows:

Diskpart.exe /S:disablepart.txt

The file disablepart.txt, which provides input to Diskpart.exe, contains the following commands:

SEL DIS 0
SEL PAR 1
INACTIVE
EXIT

Diskpartshould be run on every active partition on the boot drive of all client computers receiving an automated installation. To simplify administration, you might be able to run this program from a client management system such as SMS.

Note

  • Clients that are configured for an automated installation by using the prestaging script can still have the installation loop problem, if their BIOS boot configuration is not set with the hard disk as first boot device, as described earlier.