Need help with multiple Installations of Windows XP

[infini]

I am going to install Windows XP in about 30 PC's and the timei have is only 1 day. I sthere a way to make a "minimum install"in one PC and then make a disk to disk copy like norton ghost? I have read about sysprep that can do something similar. Iwould be grateful if someone knows more about this, or has any links that could help.Thanks.

 

[Lord Evermore]

You can perform unattended installs, which basically run a script to step through all the processes. You could do a disk to disk copy but then you'd need to modify each disk to use the proper product key for each copy (unless you have one key valid for many copies of a corporate licensed version). I'm sure if you search for "sysprep" on google you'd find plenty of descriptions of it.

 

[NogginBoink]

Use an unattended install.

Or sysprep.

Or RIS.

All of these answers are on the XP CD in support\tools\deploy.cab

 

[igiveup]

Unattended installs take time, a CD for each install that is currently running, and you babysitting all of the installs (formatting, etc...).

RIS or Ghost would be my bets. If you set up RIS then it will broadcast the installs to each computer, and RIS will be set up for any future use you might have. Ghost would involve you running imaging operations on 30 disks, which on one hand is nice because you can image all 30 drives before you have to do the install day. You also have each computer set up fully with whatever patches, software and security settings you like. Just make sure you run sysprep on the computer before you do the ghost image or you will have 30 computers with the same computername booting up at the same time...

 

[infini]

I can't use Norton Ghost because of the activasion. What exactly is RIS?

 

[igiveup]

Remote Installation Services, and it is a service that can run (optional) on Windows NT Server 4.0 and higher.

What you should and can do depends on your product key and what type of media you have. Are you a volume license holder? I would hope so when purchasing 30 or so copies of an OS as its cheaper if you go volume (as opposed to retail boxed sets). If you are a volume licensee your clients will not have to activate their installs. You still need a good CD key to install it, but you shouldn't have to activate. Having said all this, check out these two articles below.

Microsoft Knowlegebase Articles...

How to Use Sysprep with Windows Product Activation or Volume License Media to Deploy Windows XP

How to Activate Windows XP Using an Unattend.txt File