Windows Vista : Platform Components (part 2) - Windows Setup, Sysprep, Windows PE, Windows DS, ImageX

4. Windows Setup

Windows Setup (Setup.exe) is the program that installs Windows Vista. It uses image-based setup (IBS) to provide a single, unified process with which all customers can install Windows. IBS performs clean installations and upgrades of Windows. Windows Setup and IBS allow you to easily and cost-effectively deploy Windows Vista in your organization.

Windows Setup includes several new features that facilitate faster and more consistent installations:

• Improved image management Windows Vista images are stored in a single .wim file. A .wim file can store multiple instances of the operating system in a single, highly compressed file. The install file, Install.wim, is located in the Sources folder on the Windows Vista media.

• Streamlined installation Windows Setup is optimized to enable the deployment scenarios used by most organizations. Installation takes less time and provides a more consistent configuration and deployment process, resulting in lower deployment costs.

• Faster installations and upgrades Because Windows Setup is now image-based, installing and upgrading Windows Vista is faster and easier. You can perform clean installations of Windows Vista by deploying the Windows image to destination computers; you perform upgrades by installing a new image onto an existing installation of Windows. Windows Setup protects the previous Windows settings during the installation.

5. Sysprep

You use Sysprep to prepare a master installation for imaging and deployment. Sysprep does the following:

• Removes computer-specific data from Windows Vista Sysprep can remove all computer-specific information from an installed Windows Vista image, including the computer security identifier (SID). You can then capture and install the Windows installation throughout your organization.

• Configures Windows Vista to boot in audit mode You can use audit mode to install third-party applications and device drivers, as well as to test the functionality of the computer.

• Configures Windows Vista to boot to Windows Welcome Sysprep configures a Windows Vista installation to boot to Windows Welcome the next time the computer starts. Generally, you configure a system to boot to Windows Welcome as a final step before delivering the computer to the end user.

• Resets Windows Product Activation Sysprep can reset Windows Product Activation up to three times.

Sysprep.exe is located in the %WINDIR%\system32\sysprep directory on all Windows Vista installations. (You do not have to install Sysprep separately, as in earlier versions of Windows, because it’s a native part of the installation.) You must always run Sysprep from the %WINDIR%\system32\sysprep directory on the version of Windows Vista with which it was installed.

For more information about Sysprep, see the Windows Automated Installation Kit User’s Guide in the Windows AIK.

6. Windows PE

Prior to Windows PE, organizations often had to use MS-DOS boot floppies to start destination computers and then start Windows Setup from a network share or other distribution media. MS-DOS boot floppies had numerous limitations, however, including no support for the NTFS file system, no native networking support, and a requirement to locate 16-bit device drivers that worked in MS-DOS.

Now Windows PE 2.0 provides a minimal Win32 operating system with limited services—built on the Windows Vista kernel—that you use to prepare a computer for Windows Vista installation, copy disk images to and from a network file server, and start Windows Setup. Windows PE 2.0 is designed solely as a stand-alone preinstallation environment and as an integral component of other setup and recovery technologies, such as Windows Setup, Windows DS, the SMS 2003 OSD, and BDD 2007. Unlike earlier versions of Windows PE, which were only available as a Software Assurance (SA) benefit, Windows PE 2.0 is now publicly available in the Windows AIK.

Windows PE provides the following features and capabilities:

• Native support for NTFS 5.x file system, including dynamic volume creation and management

• Native support for TCP/IP networking and file sharing (client only)

• Native support for 32-bit (or 64-bit) Windows device drivers

• Native support for a subset of the Win32 Application Programming Interface (API); optional support for Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and Windows Script Host (WSH)

• Can be started from multiple media, including CD, DVD, USB Flash Drive (UFD), and Windows DS

Windows PE runs every time you install Windows Vista, whether you install the operating system by booting the computer with the Windows Vista DVD or deploy Windows Vista from Windows DS. The graphical tools that collect configuration information during the setup phase run within Windows PE. In addition, you can customize and extend Windows PE to meet specific deployment needs. For example, BDD 2007 customizes Windows PE for LTI by adding device drivers, deployment scripts, and so on.

7. Other Tools

Windows Vista also provides various command-line tools that are useful during deployment:

• BCDEdit Boot Configuration Data (BCD) files provide a store to describe boot applications and boot application settings. The objects and elements in the store effectively replace Boot.ini. BCDEdit is a command-line tool for managing BCD stores. You can use BCDEdit for a variety of purposes, including creating new stores, modifying existing stores, and adding boot menu options. BCDEdit serves essentially the same purpose that Bootcfg.exe served in earlier versions of Windows.

• Bootsect Bootsect.exe updates the master boot code for hard-disk partitions to switch between BOOTMGR and NTLDR. You can use this tool to restore the boot sector on your computer. This tool replaces FixFAT and FixNTFS.

• Diskpart DiskPart is a text-mode command interpreter in Windows Vista. You can use DiskPart to manage objects (disks, partitions, or volumes) by using scripts or direct input at a command prompt.

• Drvload The Drvload tool adds out-of-box drivers to a booted Windows PE image. It takes one or more driver .inf files as inputs. To add a driver to an offline Windows PE image, use the Peimg tool. If the driver .inf file requires a reboot, Windows PE will ignore the request. If the driver .sys file requires a reboot, you cannot add the driver with Drvload.

• Expand Expand.exe expands one or more compressed update files. Expand.exe supports opening updates for Windows Vista as well as previous versions of Windows. By using Expand, you can open and examine updates for Windows Vista on a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating system.

• Intlcfg Use the International Settings Configuration Tool (Intlcfg.exe) to change the language, locale, fonts, and input settings to a Windows Vista image. Typically, you run intlcfg.exe after applying one or more language packs to your Windows image. You can run the intlcfg command on an offline Windows image or on a running Windows operating system.

• Lpksetup You can use Lpksetup to perform unattended or silent-mode language pack operations. Lpksetup runs only on an online Windows Vista operating system.

• Oscdimg Oscdimg is a command-line tool for creating an image (.iso) file of a customized 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows PE. You can then burn an .iso file to a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM.

• Peimg Peimg.exe is command-line tool for creating and modifying Windows PE 2.0 images offline.

• Powercfg You can use the Powercfg tool to control power settings and configure computers to default to Hibernate or Standby modes.

• Winpeshl Winpeshl.ini controls whether a custom shell is loaded in Windows PE instead of the default Command Prompt window.

• Wpeinit Wpeinit is a command-line tool that initializes Windows PE each time it boots. When Windows PE starts, Winpeshl.exe executes Startnet.cmd, which launches Wpeinit.exe. Wpeinit.exe specifically installs PnP devices, processes Unattend.xml settings, and loads network resources. Wpeinit replaces the initialization function previously supported using the Factory.exe –winpe command. Wpeinit outputs log messages to C:\Windows\system32\wpeinit.log.

• Wpeutil The Windows PE utility (Wpeutil) is a command-line tool that you can use to run various commands in a Windows PE session. For example, you can shut down or reboot Windows PE, enable or disable Windows Firewall, set language settings, and initialize a network.

8. Windows DS

Windows Deployment Services is the updated and redesigned version of Remote Installation Services (RIS) in Windows Server Code Name “Longhorn” and a Windows DS update is also available for Windows Server 2003. This update is in the Windows AIK. Windows DS helps organizations rapidly deploy Windows operating systems, particularly Windows Vista. Using Windows DS, you can deploy Windows operating systems over a network without having to be physically present at the destination computer and without using the media.

Windows DS delivers a better in-box deployment solution than RIS. It provides platform components that enable you to use custom solutions, including remote boot capabilities; a plug-in model for PXE server extensibility; and a client-server communication protocol for diagnostics, logging, and image enumeration. Also, Windows DS unifies on a single image format (.wim) and provides a greatly improved management experience through the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and scriptable command-line tools.

For organizations that already have RIS deployed, Windows DS maintains parity with RIS by providing both coexistence and migration paths for RIS. Windows DS will continue to support RIS images in legacy or mixed mode. Windows DS also provides tools to migrate RIS images to the new .wim image file format.

9. ImageX

ImageX is the Windows Vista tool that you use to work with .wim image files. ImageX is an easy-to-use command-line utility. You use ImageX to create and manage .wim image files. With ImageX, you can capture images and apply them to destination computers’ hard drives. You can mount .wim image files as folders and thereby edit images offline. ImageX addresses the challenges that organizations faced when using sector-based imaging formats or the MS-DOS XCopy command to copy an installation of Windows onto new hardware. For example, sector-based imaging:

• Requires that the destination computer use the same Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) as the master computer.

• Requires that the destination computer boot from the same type of mass-storage controller as the master computer.

• Destroys the existing contents of the destination computer’s hard drive, complicating migration scenarios.

• Duplicates the hard drive exactly; therefore, the image can deploy only to partitions that are the same type and at least as large as the source partition on the master computer.

• Does not allow for direct modification of image-file contents.

The limitations of sector-based imaging led Microsoft to develop ImageX and the accompanying .wim image file format. You can use ImageX to create an image, modify the image without going through the extraction and re-creation process, and deploy the image to your environment—all using the same tool.

Because ImageX works at the file level, it provides numerous benefits. It provides more flexibility and control over your images. For example, you can mount an image on to a folder, and then add files to, copy files from, and delete files from the image using a file-management tool such as Windows Explorer. ImageX allows for quicker deployment of images and more rapid installations. With the file-based image format, you can also deploy images nondestructively so that ImageX does not erase the destination computer’s hard drive.

ImageX also supports highly compressed images. First, .wim files support single instancing: File data is stored separately from path information so that .wim files can store duplicate files that exist in multiple paths one time. Second, .wim files support two compression algorithms—fast and maximum—which give you control over the size of your images and the time required to capture and deploy them.