Enterprise Deployment Features

We have been looking at the security, networking and

management features available in

Vista

. This month we see how easy is it for you to deploy

Vista

and maintain systems running it reliably? How quickly can you get a new system

up and running on this OS and make sure everything is running fine? Single

deployments are easy: all you need to do is boot the target workstation with the



Vista

installation disc and install the OS as usual. But, you have hundreds of

systems to manage and running back and forth between them with optical media and

keeping track of CD keys and licenses is a hassle. That's where the ability to

deploy multiple systems remotely comes in, though its not new to Windows.

Multiple deployments



Of course, administrators have always had the use of deployment tools like

the Pre Installation Kits and the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) or

they could use things like RIS (Remote Installation Service) to remote-deploy

XP. However, it was very difficult to make changes to pre-created images as one

needed to actually deploy the image to a test system, make the changes to that

running system and then re-create the image, most often with just standard ISO

compression. Considering the number of patches and fixes to add and drivers to

install, this is a long and tedious process to repeat on hundreds or even tens

of systems. The WAIK for Windows Vista includes a tool called XImage which

becomes the create/modify tool for a new disk-imaging format in

Vista

called WIM (Windows IMage). This tool not only lets you create the images for

deployment, but also lets you add and modify files and settings within it

similar to that provided by ISO-editing tools.

The WIM images contain data in a highly compressed format.

It is documented that if multiple copies of a file exist in the image, only one

of them is stored (similar to the philosophy of 'Content Addressed Storage'

in storage devices). This lets one store more image files on the same size disk

compared to earlier formats. Also, a single WIM file can contain multiple system

images that can be deployed selectively without needing to destroy data on the

entire partition or hard disk as is necessary with traditional methods (like

Ghost). XImage accepts a variety of command line parameters that lets you

capture, configure, deploy, edit, compress and export.

Files created with XImage are denoted by a WIM extension

and if you examine the set-up image downloaded from MS, you will notice that the

installer itself comes in this format (notice the files 'boot.wim' and

'install.wim' under the 'sources' folder).

Using XImage



Download the WAIK ISO image from your MSDN Subscriber downloads site and

burn it onto a CD. Run the installer on the disc on a

Vista

system to install WAIK-note that you will require to have installed .NET

Framework 2.0 (provided in the image) before starting install of WAIK itself.

However, you will only see 'Setup Manager' in your Programs menu. XImage is

a commandline tool and needs to be accessed separately. To do this, go to the

'Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86' (or x64 if you use the 64-bit

Vista

to run it).

The first thing to do is to capture an installable image.

There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind before you try to capture

disk images: one, you cannot capture the current instance of

Vista

. Trying to do this will give you errors about various files being in use. This

means, you need to install WAIK/XImage on a different system and plug your

source hard disk into that system. Two: make sure that you have lots of free

space on your (XImage system's) hard disks before starting the process. From

an elevated command window, run the command (assuming the

Vista

source drive is 'D'):

XImage /compress maximum

/capture D: vistaclean.wim “Vista Clean Image”

The 'maximum' parameter value tells XImage to compress

the captured image file to the maximum possible size. Alternately, you can

select no compression by specifying 'none' instead.  The WIM file

specified is the name of the target image file and the final quoted text is a

descriptive name for the image. This will take a long time, so plan these

capture sessions carefully. We found that we could capture not only

Vista

images but also Win XP and any hard disk at all.

When you want to deploy such a captured image, you use the

'/apply' parameter with the image file and the target drive letter.

Obviously, you do not specify the compression values at that time.

Disasters and recovery



When your system refuses to boot or work properly, it is essential that the

system environment lets you quickly fix and get the system back online as soon

as possible. Win XP had only a fixed number of ways to do this. You could either

use a number of commands from the Repair console or use the ASR, both when you

boot using the installation media XP comes on.

How has this changed in

Vista

? When you boot off

Vista

's installation DVD, and select the 'System recovery options' link, the

application scans for valid Windows installations on your hard disks and

displays them. You need to select the one you want to recover and then you are

shown five options: Startup repair, System restore, Windows backup disaster

recovery and the built-in Memory diagnostic tool along with the command prompt.

Yes, the last option is there in case the first four cannot help solve the

problem.

Startup repair fixes booting problems and corrupted system

files that are needed at boot time. System Restore needs you have the restore

information, which means you need to configure Vista to take regular system

snapshots for reliable recovery to the nearest desirable working condition.

Windows backup can take backups of system files and settings along with data and

this tool can recover your system to a working state from such backup. To use

this feature, you can have the back-up files on CD/DVD media, somewhere on your

network or on the same system's hard disks.

The memory diagnostic cannot run in the post-boot

environment and needs to reboot the system. This diagnostic is the same as the

one examined in our earlier article, and can either reboot the system

immediately to run or can be scheduled for the next time the system starts.

Unlike the TUI environment of Win XP where special commands are available to fix

the system, the one you get when you select 'Command Prompt' from the

disaster recovery options is your regular command prompt. In fact, even the

'help' command that's usually helpful in seeing what commands are

available is not there! We conclude our Vista series next month with a look at

the latest CTP (due to be released as we go to press with this issue-so no

time for that) and the updates  and the ways in which your life is set to

become easier (or much tougher) because of this new client OS. Also, MS has now

released the specs requried to run

Vista

. So, stay tuned.

Sujay V Sarma