Install Win XP Remotely

Installing an OS is a time consuming task, and more so for a large enterprise with hundreds of nodes. That’s why remote installation is becoming popular in the world of network management and administration. It saves the hassle of going to each workstation, popping in a CD and manually installing the OS. In remote installation, you have a common installation of your OS ready on the server, and just boot the desktop node from the server and start the installation. In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can install Win XP remotely using its RIS (Remote Installation Services). 

First, you need to set up RIS on a Win 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 and the DHCP service running. The server must also have the ADS (Active Directory Service) configured. Plus, all desktop nodes on which you’ll be installing XP remotely need to have LAN cards with a PXE boot ROM. Let’s look at the process step by step.

 STEP

ONE 



First, install the DHCP server on Win 2000 Sever. For this, click on Add/Remove Programs from Start>Control Panel, go to the Add/Remove Windows Components tab, and from the list of built-in Windows components, double click on Networking Services, select Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and click on OK. You’ll need your Win 2000 Sever CD handy for this. Once it’s installed, you can run the service from Start>Programs>Administrator Tools. This will open the MMC (Microsoft Management Console). From the right panel, select the Win 2000 Server, right click on it and from the drop-down menu that appears, select New Scope. This will start a wizard that will ask you to name your DHCP scope and IP Address Range. When you reach the Configure DHCP option, select ‘No I will configure these options later’ and click on Next. Finally, choose ‘Yes, I want to activate the scope’ option when it appears and click finish.

 STEP

TWO 



In the DHCP configuration window, right click on the DHCP server icon and choose the Authorize option from the drop-down menu. Press the F5 button and you will get a green arrow on the server icon indicating that your DHCP server is now running. 

 STEP

THREE 



To install RIS, go to Add/Remove Programs and add the Remote Installation Services component from the same place that you installed DHCP from. You’ll again need your Win 2000 Server CD. Once it copies the necessary files, a wizard will pop up. At this point, cancel the wizard and first download the Q313069_W2K_SPL_ x86_en.exe file from microsoft.com/downloads to your Win2000 Server. Double click on this file and extract it to the \Remote Install\Admin\ i386 directory. 

 STEP

FOUR 



Click on Start>Run and type ‘risetup’ to start a wizard for configuring RIS. Give the path of your Win XP installation CD when asked, and provide the path where RIS should create the OS image. Keep clicking on Next until you get to the Remote Installation Service Option screen. From there, select ‘Add New OS Image to this Remote Installation Server’ and click on Next. The wizard will then create the image of your Win XP OS. Click on Finish after it has done so. 

 STEP

FIVE 



Your server is now ready to distribute Win XP remotely to desktops. Now, just go to any client and configure it to boot from the PXE LAN card. The client should be able to get an IP address from your Win 2000 Server. As soon as it gets the IP, press the F12 key to boot off the network. The client will get a DOS-based wizard to install Win XP from the server. The wizard will ask you for a username and password to login to the remote boot server. Give the administrative user name and password to login, after which your Win XP installation screen will show up.

Sanjay Majumder