Can you install Windows XP on a machine over a network?

[hootpie]

I recently acquired an ultra-portable (read: no built in CD-ROM drive) Sony Vaio laptop from my brother.

I want to do a clean install of Windows XP, but I don't want to have to buy an external CD-ROM drive. Is there anyway to copy the files from the install CD onto my desktop computer's hard drive (or even the laptop's HD), boot from the network, run the setup.exe file from my desktop computer's HD on my laptop, then reformat the laptop's HD and install Windows?

Is it possible to do this with a 512mb thumbdrive?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I should mention that a google search turned up nothing for me.

 

[TGS]

Text

PXE?

Multicast?

Imaging software?

 

[Phoenix86]

Google RIS, ghosting/imaging, and PXE. All three methods will work over a network.

 

[NogginBoink]

You can use RIS, or you can boot the machine to a DOS boot diskette with network drivers and run winnt.exe (I think?) from a network share.

 

[hootpie]

I forgot to mention that my desktop computer and the laptop have Windows XP Pro. If I looked it up correctly, RIS can only be enabled on Win2k/2k3 Server.

I think I'll just go buy an external cd-rom drive, then return it when I'm done, but I'd still like to learn how to do the XP install over a network. I'll look into the things you guys posted.

Thanks

 

[mrbill14]

Over the network, I would use a network boot disk (www.bootdisk.com - make sure you have drivers for the NIC!) and do a "net use X:{servername\share}". Seems that that would be kinda slow.

If I'm working on a laptop and don't have a CD-ROM (or it's external), I'll usually remove the HD and stick it in another machine using an adapter like this one - Laptop adapter

Boot the laptop HD while connected to another machine, format it (FAT32, make it bootable). Copy the contents of the WinXP CD to the laptop HD. Put the laptop HD back in the laptop, boot up to the C: drive and run setup... should work. (I think that's how I did it - it's been a couple of months.)

 

[nweaver]

most laptops without cd's support PXE boot. Look at the altiris software for info on it (works great for pxe boot/configuration/net installs)