Deploying BDD is a big project. One of the first elements, and a huge time saver, is installing WDS. This tool allows us to stream down a copy of Windows PE 2.0 to your clients so that you can launch the installation process in a 32 or 64 bit environment. This allows for much faster network transfer as PXE is 16 bit, and not really well suited to large sized OS deployments. Using WDS also allows you to save a lot of blank CDs and DVDs as anyone who needs it can pull down a bootable PE image.

The first steps for install WDS is installing its predecessor on a Windows 2003 or 2003 R2 server. This is done through the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel Applet:

Make sure you have your Window Server source or installation CD handy. Also note you will be required to reboot the server once RIS has been installed.

For the next step you will need to download the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) from Microsoft. You can also install Service Pack 2 for Windows server which also contains the WDS update.

For this article I will proceed using the WAIK CD. Once you have downloaded the WAIK image and mounted it to a virtual drive, or burned it to a DVD, you will see a WDS folder in the WAIK folder structure.

In the WDS folder you can find the appropriate hotfix:

Most administrators will be use: WINDOWS-DEPLOYMENT-SERVICES-UPDATE-X86.EXE

Running the EXE will start a standard component update wizard:

Click Next, Read the license agreement, click Agree, Click finish. Once the wizard is complete you will be asked to restart again.

Click finish to restart the server. Once the server is back online, open Programs->Administrative Tools->Windows Deployment Services:

Note: To perform the following tasks you will need to be logged into the domain as an Enterprise Administrator. This is so you can authorize the WDS service in the domain. Much the same was as any normal DHCP server needs to be domain authorized. Expand servers, and then right click on the server name in the list, Click Configure Server:

Take note of the requirements for activating WDS services (See screenshot below). Most networks should have all these, but if you missing any element make sure to get it up and running in your network first.

Choose a folder to store your PE images. Note: Because you're using BDD to deploy windows we won't actually store the "OS" image in the RemoteInstall location. We just store the Windows PE portion that gets download when a client computer performs a PXE boot off the network. Once you have specified a location click Next.

If the server you installed WDS on already has a DHCP server installed you will be prompted to check the "Do not listen on port 67" and "Configure DHCP option 60 to PXE Client" options. These allow WDS/PXE clients to co-exist on a server answering normal DHCP client requests.

Choose the level of authorization a computer needs to have in order to be served by the WDS server

And then click Finish. The WDS wizard will complete the configuration of the Server.

In the next dialog box you can uncheck the option to add images for now. Click finish. Now you have a clean install of WDS. In order to get a computer booting over the network there is still a few steps left.

If you right click on the Server name and then click properties, and finally navigate to the boot tab you'll notice that this panel lists the programs that should be used when a computer connects to the WDS server and request the boot loader. These programs that are listed is the network boot loader. Now notice that when we click on the browse button we're actually missing those programs.

If you search your remote install directory you won't find them either. In order to get these programs we actually need to add a boot image. Click Cancel on the browse dialog. Click Cancel again on the properties dialog box.

In the main MMC right click Boot Images and click Add. We want to add a boot wim image. We can get this image in 2 places. In the BDD structure if you have created and populated a deploy point there will a file called:

[BDD DRIVE]\Distribution\Boot\LiteTouchPE_x86.wim

For this example we will use the PE on a Windows Vista cd. It can be found in the sources folder. Choose the Boot.wim file and click open.

Click Next. If you want to modify the name of the boot image to suite your needs go ahead.

Click next, and click next again. The wizard completes adding the boot image:

Once it's done, check the properties in the boot tab again. Notice when you click browse the needed file is there along with several others

We will go into detail later about what these different boot loaders do. For now it's the boot loaders that end in n12 are actually pretty useful. These allow you to start a network installation without have to press F12 a second time (Or after having chosen a network boot) to confirm the installation. This can be useful if you are deploying a large number of machines by minimizing the interaction necessary during deployment. Be careful though; make sure normal users can't accidently initiate a network boot up. Client computer in PXE boot mode:

Here we see WinPE loading up

Note if you use the Window Vista boot.wim you may get an error message. This is because that boot.wim is not meant to be pushed out using WDS. We are just using it to make sure WDS is working. If you use the LiteTouchPE you should see the initial stage of a BDD deployment. Unless you have built your BDD images then this will be as far as you can go today.

So this concludes setting up WDS. The mode we used here was WDS in native mode. We can actually configure WDS to work in a mixed mode allowing for the deployment using RIS or WDS, and we can also use it in legacy mode, a mode that only offers RIS.

To make WDS really useful today you can create a WinRE image and set it up to boot over the network. WinRE is the equivalent of a DOS boot disk with all the common utilities built into it. You can check out how to make a WinRE image over at the WinRE msdn blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/winre/archive/2006/12/12/creating-winre-using-waik.aspx