Windows Vista Deployment Notes
One of my major projects this summer is to upgrade the 3D animation lab from 32-bit Windows XP to 64-bit Vista. There have been some pretty major changes in deployment techniques from XP to Vista, and I will use this space to document these changes and my process.
Lab Overview
The lab consists of 19 workstations, one renderfarm master computer, two Windows 2003 servers, and the network infrastructure to connect everything together.
Hardware
The lab consists of 19 Dell Precision 690 Workstations, with:
- Dual Core Xeon 5110 Processor (64 bit, 1.60 GHz)
- 4 GB RAM
- Nvidia Quadro FX1500 Video Card
- 24" Dell Widescreen Monitors
In addition to their use as workstations, the computers also make up the lab's distributed renderfarm. Distributing the render jobs across all 19 workstations has reduced the time required to render by at least 10x, and has been a great success for the lab.
The renderfarm master is an older Dell Optiplex GX 270 and the servers are Dell Poweredge 1900's.
Software
The animation students primarily use Autodesk's Maya 2008 to create their animations. Some work is done in Adobe Photoshop and Premier. Muster is used to manage the renderfarm. We plan to teach some graphic design classes in the lab in the future, where Photoshop, Illustrator, and inDesign are heavily used.
Network
The animation lab is on a separate localized network from the rest of JMU with no internet access. The network backend consists of two Windows 2003 servers providing an Active Directory domain, DNS, DHCP, and file sharing to the lab.
Plans
This upgrade will be from 32-bit XP to 64-bit Vista, to take advantage of the 4GB of RAM in each workstation. All software, including Maya 2008, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, and Muster (for the renderfarm) must be tested to ensure they work properly in the new environment.
Steps
- Install Vista and the additional software on a test machine and test to ensure everything works in the new operating system.
- Develop an autounattend.xml file via Windows AIK and test an automated install with the Vista DVD.
- Using Norton Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 and sysprep, generate a master image, possibly from the test machine.
- Deploy the image over the network and test.
Important Sysprep Notes
One of the biggest changes from XP to Vista from a deployment standpoint is the consolidation of the files for sysprep and automated deployment. Whereas XP used many different files including sysprep.inf and unattended.txt, Vista uses only an xml file known as unattend.xml or autounattend.xml depending on its use.
Microsoft provides a tool for generating the unattend.xml file: Windows SIM, included in the Windows AIK. Be sure to install the version of the AIK that corresponds to the Service Pack you are running in Vista.
In addition to this, Windows now provides a disk imaging tool known as ImageX that allows for network based imaging similar to Ghost Solution Suite. I have slated ImageX for future testing, as it looks very interesting.
Creating the Answer File
This Microsoft TechNet article provides an excellent overview of how to create a basic answer file for unattended deployments. The main changes I made are as follows:
- All Locales and Languages set to en-US
- Create Partition/Extent = true. I only need one partition on each machine.
- UserData: fullName = School of Art and Art History; Organization = James Madison University
The settings in the TechNet article will allow an install of Vista to proceed unattended until the point known as the OOBE (out-of-box experience), where you will be prompted to set up an account, etc. Fortunately, this can also be automated, allowing for a truly unattended install.
I found this article on automating the OOBE (part of an enormous series covering Vista deployment very helpful. Basically, some additonal components are added to the answer file via the Windows SIM:
- Local Account: I set this to a local administrator.
- Computer Name: This can be set, but then all computers will have the same name.
- Network Location: Work
- TimeZone: Eastern Standard Time
- DomainAccount: Can be used to automatically join a domain instead of the default workgroup.
Once the answer file is created and tested, deployment via Ghost over the network can proceed as it has in the past with XP.
Conclusion
There have been many changes in deployment techniques from Windows XP to Vista, mostly for the better. The process seems more streamlined, and the inclusion of ImageX is potentially very cool. The changes took some time to understand, and I hope this information can serve as rudimentary documentation for the future. All in all, I couldn't have done this without some help!
