Newby Installation questions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nick Gage
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Nick Gage

Hi,

I have a couple of questions that I am hoping that someone can help me
figure out. My company has approx 250 systems in the field that are
currently running NTW 4. With the product that we have installed on these
systems we have determined that we can push out an unattended install of XP
Pro to these boxes and do a clean install/upgrade to these boxes without
problem. What we would like to do is to be able to push out something
similar to this unattended install out to these systems using XPe instead of
XP Pro. From what I have seen, and from what little I know, I do not
believe that this is going to be possible, but I would like to open this up
to a larger group who I hope can give me some ideas to try.

Assuming that I can just use XCOPY or Robocopy to copy the XPe image files
into place on the boot drive, what do I need to do to make the system
bootable to XPe? I think I can make this work and get it configured via
scripts if I can just get beyond this main question.

Thanks for any help/insights that you can give me.

Nick
 
Hi Nick,

For XPE this is piece of cake, but it only depends on you how much are you
ready to bite. And of computer purpose.

You can do this with following:

1. Format active partition with NTFS.
2. Copy all files to this partition.
3. You are ready to go.


Easiest way to deploy:
- First XPE CD is bootable. And you have all necessary tools for
partitioning, formatting, and copying.


Hardest way:
Make one of your XPE images CD bootable or USB Flash drive bootable,
depending on target capabilities.
And make application that will automatically partition, format, and copy all
required files.

I prefer the second way, but choice is yours. Of course you can find
yourself somewhere between, or even some other way to deploy.

Possibilities are limitless and depend only on your knowledge and
imagination.


Hope this will help you to understand what can be done with XPE,
Slobodan
 
Unless the systems are pretty much all the same, it
wouldn't be an easy task at all, however if they are all
the same, then scripting the task shouldn't be all that
hard - but why XPe?
 
Why XPE? It comes down to a matter of $$. XPE will do what we need it to
do and the licenses for it are about $100 cheaper per seat.

The nice thing is that we only have 2 configurations for these boxes, so it
should not be that big of a deal. I'm assuming, and please correct me if I
am incorrect, that I can put all the stuff that I need for both platforms
into a single image and then push this out?

Thanks!

Nick
 
You can include the HW components for each platform into the single image,
lots of companies do this. The caveat to this is that the two platforms must
be using the same HAL (Standard PC, ACPI, MP, etc...).

If the two HW platforms BIOS' use different HALs, then using a single image
won't work.

Andy
 
Yes you can have bouth configs in one image.

There are some limitations on that, e.g. you can't use ACPI and StandardPC
togehter...

Mario
 
Why XPE? It comes down to a matter of $$. XPE will do what we need it to
do and the licenses for it are about $100 cheaper per seat.
Click to expand...

What are the systems used for?

XPe is cheaper, but the license is restrictive.
I read it as "not allowed as a generic desktop OS".


I can imagine applications where it would be better than XP Pro (think
of classrooms, restoring to a known clean state and EWF), but the way
I understood it the license doesn't permit it.

Maybe someone else can comment on how we should read the license
conditions?
 
Yes, if that's the case then all should be fine - but I'd
recommend you test it on both platforms. We have been
supplied two slightly different modems, and one identifies
as Lucent Winmodem, the other as Lucent Winmodem #2 - I
don't know if this sort of thing would cause problems in
any of your configuration scripts, but it's worth being
aware of.
If you want, you can pretty much have a full build of XP
Pro (and there's even vampire.slx on xpefiles.com to make
this easier to do) - but with the added benefit of EWF,
which prevents changes to drives, reducing the impact of
virii, PEBKAC errors and .dll roulette, as a reboot will
fix most things.
 
What are the systems used for?
XPe is cheaper, but the license is restrictive.
I read it as "not allowed as a generic desktop OS".
Click to expand...

Yes you are correct.
That was in my first response: "And of computer purpose."
But even I have trouble understanding what I have said with this incomplete
sentence :(
I can imagine applications where it would be better than XP Pro (think
of classrooms, restoring to a known clean state and EWF), but the way
I understood it the license doesn't permit it.
Click to expand...

Yes and many more applications would benefit from XPE. But licence doesn't
permit it.
Maybe someone else can comment on how we should read the license
conditions?
Click to expand...

Simply determine what you want to accomplish, and what you will need in
process to do that, keep this in head.

Then read license agreement step by step, and check if you satisfy all
clauses. If you satisfy all clauses, then you are ok.

If you don't, consult with MS this is safest way.


For me it is much easier to make any application, driver or XPE
configuration or to understand hardware Data Sheets then to read infinite
number of EULA-s, License Agreements, and other legal stuff.


Best regards,
Slobodan
 
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