Rolling out Windows XP - Answer Needed

[tbird2340]

Hello. I am currently redoing a company's network. They have 15 workstations all with Windows 98 on them. I had planned on formatting one workstation, installing a fresh copy of Windows XP Professional, installing all the applications they use (over 10 apps), and then ghost the machine after it has everything on it.

The problem I ran into was that all the PC's have different hardware. I figured I would just be able to change the video card / network card once I loaded the image and booted into XP but I cannot even get into Windows once I load the image. It just goes to BSOD no matter what.

Does anyone have a suggestion / solution that may fit what I'm trying to accomplish?

Thanks much!

[SpookyEddy]

I stick a copy of the CD on a network share, slipstream in any SP's and/or hotfixes I want and then create unattend installation files for each workstation. A quick run around site with a boot disk (including network card drivers and some other junk) and all the machines build themselves across the network. I did look at Ghost and RIS at one point but they didn't really appeal.

Regards

ed

[tbird2340]

Ed, did this install all applications you wanted or just XP itself?

Thanks

[SpookyEddy]

Just XP, forgot to mention that I push all my software out as MSI packages via GPO's (Active Directory domain). After the machines finish installing they reboot and grab the software they want depending what OU they are under in Active Directory. Just an idea, maybe not practical for your needs.

Regards

ed

[SpookyEddy]

On a related note, when you tried to ghost the machines did you use Sysprep?

If not you can find some information here

Regards

ed

[tbird2340]

Error 500
HTTP Web Server: Illegal Arguments Exception

With that link... Thanks for your help.

[SpookyEddy]

Stupid symantec web site, just stick Sysprep and ghost into google and its one of the first links (google also has it cached).

Regards

ed

[tbird2340]

Stupid question. How do I determine if the HAL's are identical on all of my workstations?

I'm coming into this situation after the fact. A lot of their PC's are all custom builds (nothing I would use) and I'm not sure what motherboard / chipset / etc are in each.

[Eraserhead]

Disk images / ghosting for installation require that the computers to be loaded must have the same HAL and disk drive types as the source computer, plus the drives must be at least as large as the source computer's.

Device Manager should tell you pretty much what you need to know about the H/W on each PC.

If you use sysprep, you can use the -pnp switch to run plug and play detection, so I wouldn't worry about other hardware as long as they are PnP devices (video card, NIC etc) and that you have the appropriate drivers for them