Even if you have to load applications manually either on your workstations or your
servers after the OS is installed, automating the bare installation can still save you significant
time and resources??”which, of course, equates to saving money. For the purpose of
WDS, you will need to learn how to install and configure WDS and set up your clients PXE
boot, create images, and create unattended setup files. This is significant up-front engineering
work, but in an organization with hundreds of servers, it is well worth the effort.
The general procedure for WDS is to install the server, configure the server, add your
images, deploy the images, and lastly, maintain your images. This last task can be a
nightmare: Typically, an image is made for a particular system build with all the appropriate
base applications and utilities preloaded. This is then marked as the baseline
image. The problem is that as changes are made in the environment??”such as application
setting changes and system updates??”you will eventually need to go back and update
your baseline image to create a new one. Updating the baseline image typically means
dumping the current baseline image, then making all the necessary updates, running
sysprep to reseal it, and finally recapturing this new baseline image. Without this level of
maintenance, you run the risk several months later of loading images on your network
148 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Administration
that are not appropriately patched or are incorrectly configured.
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