Deploy Win 7 to remote locations

[garysparker]

Hello everyone.

 

Scenario:

Centralized data center with a single SCCM site.

Multiple remote locations with a single domain controller at each location which is also an SCCM Distribution Point.

 

Need:

Reimage existing computers at these remote sites.

 

Question:

What is required at the remote distribution point for the remote computers to be reimaged?

Do I need to have the remote servers as PXE service points with WDS or can I push a Task Sequence to the remote computer and have it pull the image from the remote Distribution Point?

 

Thanks!

Gary

[Rocket Man]

Good question:

 

If you have the client installed on the remote computers then NO you do not need WDS/PXE but you do need a DP set up with packages and images distributed(not unless you have very fast comms links between sites)......but it probably is better to have the PXE option available especially for unknown computer support which refers to out of the box PCs

 

Rocket Man

[Jorgen Nilsson]

I agree if you are going to have a DP out there, I would definatly use it as a PXE server as well, no doubt.

 

Regards,

Jörgen

[garysparker]

Thank you both for your replies.

 

Long term we will deploy PXE/WDS to the servers at the remote locations. However, we need a quick way to reimage computers that become infected with malware.

 

What gotchas should I watch out for when installing PXE/WDS to a 2008R2 domain controller that runs DHCP, DNS, WINS, etc.?

[Rocket Man]

When WDS resides on same server as DHCP you have to add DHCP options 60 and 67 in the DHCP server options.

 

Getting Boot.wim ready for PXE

Add the option on boot.wims to be able to deploy from PXE server and redistribute out to remote DPs(make sure and do both x86 & x64)

 

Installing PXE

Step1: install WDS from server roles(do not configure) on remote DP

Step2: Add PXE to DP from site server (enable unknown computer support, password if needs be etc....)

Step3: Check the created WDS RemoteInstall folder to make sure the extra directories were created paying particular attention to SMSboot directory. Both x86 & x64 directories should get populated with files.

Step4: Pxe is ready to go...Good luck with it

 

Just out of curiousty....why are you having the DP on a DC?? Is your enviornment not virtual?

 

 

 

Rocket Man

[Peter van der Woude]

Another importing thing is that both DHCP and WDS listen to the same port (67), so you have to configure WDS to listen to a different port.

[Rocket Man]

I believe this command should do this for you

 

WDSUTIL /set-server /UseDHCPPorts:No /DHCPOption60:yes

 

This command worked for me with SCCM 2007R3, as i had set this up on a single server hosting all services,ADDS,DNS,DHCP,SCCM etc...

 

Rocket Man