Win2k network install (need client?)

[John Prophet]

Ok, I am taking 70-210 classes etc...so I am at home playing around trying to get a little hands on experience.

I have win2k server on one machine. I have dhcp and dns working on it. I have a static IP on the machine etc.


I have went thru the process to create a distribution folder and a custom answer file for installing win2k over a network.



Now I am sorta stuck with a couple questions.

1) I see that I need a network client boot floppy to connect to my server....uhh, where do I get one??

2) Im a little confused about the partitioning deal....do I have to partition the drive first?? of course I have ntfs and extend oem partition in the answer file but I am still under the impression that I need at least a small partition to start with.

I see where it says that the process will copy a small temp folder to the partition and then it will ask me to restart then it will go into the unattended phase.....so after that is it just going to reformat the drive anyway?? If that is the situation then does it matter what type of partition I have on there at first? I ask cuz I have some disks with old w98 installs so I could just quick format those and save some time.



Thanks for the help, JP

[SpookyEddy]

1) We built our own disks consisting of some dos packet drivers, scripts to map the correct network drives, basic system utilities and a sketchy menu system.

2) The disks we built partition the disk and format to fat32 in advance so the temp files can be stored before the Windows setup starts.

Regards

eddy

[John Prophet]

Anyone else, there has to be a nice little freeware floppy floating around somewhere...or maybe even on the win2k or 2k server disks somewhere???

Thanks, JP

[DVNT1]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...oot_Floppy.asp

[John Prophet]

yeah, I found that on my Win2k server....

I tried it but it wont pick up the dhcp from the server...although the server shows it has given out a lease to the machine.

My 70-210 instructor is telling me that you must have RIS installed and configured to do ANY install over a network...is that true??

I was under the impression that you had to have RIS to do the image type install but that you could do an over the network install using the unattend.txt file etc as long as you have a distribution folder with the install files etc.


Whats the deal with it..can you do a network install without RIS? I am not too interested in loading an image at this point, I just want to boot from a floppy and have the install run over the network unattended etc.

Anyway, I am going to get my RIS working (I didnt have a seperate partition but I will throw in another hard drive) and then I will try this rbfg floppy again.

Any ideas about the network install??

Thanks, JP

[DVNT1]

Generally, to install W2K you need to access the W2K install files somehow or use an imaging program. How you access the W2K install files can very. By RIS, by CD, by network Share, etc...

With that in mind, there are ways to to create a boot disk to acces W2K files over the network (aka, you don't have to have RIS setup). Easy example, use a Novell client to access a Novell server share to access the W2K install files. Then use appropriate setup swithes to copy install files to local HD