Windows Deployment Services
Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is a role that is built in to the server operating system since 2008. Today we will be looking at how to configure that role so that we can network boot (or PXE boot). This post will show you the basics required to set it up and to add the LiteTouch.wim file that was created when configuring MDT from my earlier blog posts. This way we can initiate a network boot and connect to our MDT deployment server.
We will be using our same environment from our MDT demonstration so our lab consists of 3 VMs. VM1 is an Server 2012 R2 with AD and VM2 is a Server 2012 R2 with the WDS role installed. Our 3rd VM is a blank VM that we will use to deploy our images to.
Open up the Windows Deployment Services (WDS) management console and right click on the server name (see below) and click on “Configure Server”
If you have an AD structure in place then feel free to integrate WDS with AD
Here you can select a folder that WDS will store all its files it has to deal with. In my production environment i store this on the same drive that has my MDT stores. We can do the same in our lab.
Now this screen will require a bit of an explanation. We have 4 possible options here. When we network boot a device, it reaches out via the network via a broadcast. What the WDS server does when it hears that broadcast is determined here. It can either “Not Respond”, “Resond only to known clients”, “Respond to all clients (known and unknown)”, and if it responds to all to require admin approval. In my production environment I only have the MDT boot file so I use the “Respond to all clients” option. Because MDT requires admin credentials to connect to the store my images are safe from being abused that way. If however you are using WDS to deploy images then you may want to put a tick in the require admin approval box. This will allow the devices to boot, but before any images are deployed an administrator must log into the WDS server and manually approve deployment.
For this lab however feel free to put a “Respond to all client computers (known and unknown)”.
Once thats done your WDS server is now complete. I will delve into WDS a bit more in my next post but for now we are just going to add the MDT boot image from our previous lab. Click Finish to carry on.
As you can see from the finished environment we have another folder structure (similar in nature to the MDT environment). Right click on the “Boot Images” and choose to add a boot image. Navigate to the MDT deployment folder and select the LiteTouchPE_X64.wim (or x86 if you are using that file for your environment). You can find this file in the DeploymentShareBoot folder.
Enter an Image name and description. Choose a fitting name and description as necessary (or leave it as default).
Click next and let it upload.
Once that completes you will now have your LiteTouch boot file loaded for PXE boot. If you see below I have a second boot image loaded.
Now head to our blank VM and this time we are going to tell it to boot from the network rather than CD/DVD. On VMs this is done by changing it in the BIOS. On physical devices a network boot can be done by pressing F12 during the boot sequence. You will need to ensure that PXE boot is enabled via the BIOS of the device first. On some machines this is enabled by default, on others you will have to manually enable it. Once thats done, and pressing F12 when turning the machine on you will be presented with this screen below. As you can see we get the WDS boot manager screen, the client IP address, the Server IP address, and our WDS server name. Pressing Enter will start the network boot process.
Now this screen will appear when you have more than 1 boot image loaded. If you refer back to the image above which showed I had 2 boot images loaded, here is where you select which boot image is downloaded and run. If you only have 1 boot image loaded you will not get this screen as it will automatically download the single boot image file you have loaded into the WDS boot folder. If we select the LiteTouch image and press enter….
You will get the familiar MDT wizard.
And that brings us to the end of our Windows Deployment Services – Network boot guide. Once again you only ever need WDS to have the LiteTouch boot wim file loaded and never need to worry about the advanced features of WDS. MDT will handle deploying Windows builds 10 times easier than WDS does. Our next post however will delve into a few of the WDS features purely for informational purposes.