Windows Deployment Services Overview

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Applies To: Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) enables you to deploy Windows operating systems over the network, which means that you lot practice not have to install each operating organisation directly from a CD or DVD.

For data about what is new or included in your version of Windows Deployment Services, see What'due south New in Windows Deployment Services in Windows Server 2012.

For stride-by-step guidance on how to use the Windows Deployment Services, see Windows Deployment Services Getting Started Guide for Windows Server 2012.

Benefits of Windows Deployment Services

  1. Allows network-based installation of Windows operating systems, which reduces the complexity and cost when compared to transmission installations.

  2. Supports deploying images for mixed environments including Windows 7and Windows Server 2008 R2 through Windows 8.1and Windows Server 2012 R2.

  3. Uses standard Windows Setup technologies including Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE), .wim files, and prototype-based setup.

  4. Transmits information and images by using multicast functionality.

  5. Allows y'all to create images of a reference calculator using the Image Capture Magician, which is an culling to the ImageX tool.

  6. Allows you to add commuter packages to the server and configure them to be deployed to client computers forth with the install prototype.

Prerequisites for installing Windows Deployment Services

The post-obit are requirements for installing this role, depending on whether you choose the default installation (both Deployment Server and Transport Server), or but the Ship Server part service.

Deployment Server and Transport Server

Transport Server

  • Agile Directory Domain Services (AD DS). A Windows Deployment Services server must be a member of an Active Directory Domain Services (Advertising DS) domain or a domain controller for an AD DS domain.

    The Advertising DS domain and woods versions are irrelevant; all domain and forest configurations support Windows Deployment Services.

    Notation

    AD DS is non required if the WDS server is configured in Standalone mode.

  • DHCP. You lot must have a working Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server with an active scope on the network because Windows Deployment Services uses PXE, which relies on DHCP for IP addressing.

  • DNS. You must have a working Domain Proper noun Organization (DNS) server on the network before you lot can run Windows Deployment Services.

  • NTFS book. The server running Windows Deployment Services requires an NTFS file system volume for the prototype store.

  • Credentials. To install the role, you must exist a member of the Local Administrators group on the server.

    To initialize the server, you must be a fellow member of the Domain Admins group.

    Note

    To initialize the WDS server in Standalone mode, you need not exist a member of the Domain Users group.

    For more data, run into Required Permissions.

  • For Windows Server 2008: The only prerequisite is that you lot must be a member of the Local Administrators group on the server to install Ship Server. Besides annotation that a PXE provider is not installed with Transport Server, and so you must create a custom PXE provider to network boot.

  • For Windows Server 2008 R2: You must exist a member of the Local Administrators grouping to install Transport Server. In addition, if yous are using Transport Server to network boot, your environs must contain DHCP (Windows Server 2008 R2 contains a PXE provider, which allows you to network boot).

  • For Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server® 2012 R2, there are no additional prerequisites.

The following are tools that y'all can use to manage your server:

  1. Windows Deployment Services MMC snap-in - Provides an easy way to manage images, computers, and common server settings. You can perform nearly all tasks from the MMC snap-in (for example, you cannot prestage client computers). Note that the snap-in is not available when yous install only the Ship Server role service.

  2. WDSUTIL command-line tool - enables you to manage the full functionality of the server. WDSUTIL as well enables y'all to script common tasks.

  3. Windows PowerShell cmdlets for WDS – enables y'all to manage and monitor the WDS server using Windows PowerShell scripts.

Deploying and configuring WDS in a multi-computer surroundings

It is not common to dissever a WDS server's functionality among different computers.

Installing the WDS role on virtual machines

You can run Windows Deployment Services on Hyper-V virtual machines. Depending on the capacity of your server running Hyper-5, you lot tin can install, configure and use Windows Deployment Services. You tin also create a virtual car to act as a client machine when building and testing your deployment images. This is especially useful for edifice your custom images. Note, however, that the performance will often be degraded, peculiarly during the Picayune File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) download phase. This phase is very resource-intensive and may neglect if insufficient resource are available on your server running Hyper-V.

Alarm

WDS cannot exist run on a virtual machine in Windows Azure.

Support for the WDS role in a clustered environment

The Windows Deployment Services server service is not cluster-aware. However, you tin can run multiple WDS servers in a network to provide fault-tolerance and load balancing.

Considerations for managing this role remotely

You lot can manage Windows Deployment Services remotely past installing the Windows Deployment Services server role on a local server and so using that server to connect to the remote server in the data center or you can use the Windows PowerShell cmdlets for Windows Deployment Services to manage a remote server.

Note

Windows Deployment Service cannot be managed using the Remote Server Assistants Tools.

Managing the WDS office using the Server Cadre installation option

You lot cannot use Windows Deployment Services with the Server Core installation option.

Configuring the WDS function for high availability

WDS is designed to automatically fail over to other WDS servers. We recommend that y'all deploy two WDS servers at a minimum and and then additional servers to increase redundancy for college availability.

Note

Installing images from WDS over a broad surface area network is not recommended.

Known issues

When using the Dynamic Commuter Provisioning (DDP) feature on a WDS server running Windows Server 2012 if you lot effort to add a driver to a Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 boot.wim you may receive the post-obit error when running the "Add driver packages to image" magician:

An error occurred while trying to execute control.  Error Lawmaking:  0xc0000135

This is a known issue related to DISM version included with Windows Server 2012 that is used by WDS to service images. This version of DISM supports servicing Windows Server 2012 and earlier boot images but does not support later versions of boot images. Yous can resolved this issue by upgrading your WDS server to Windows Server 2012 R2 which contains a DISM version that supports servicing Windows viii.ane and Windows Server 2012 R2 kicking.wim's or you lot can install the Windows 8.1 ADK and manually add together the driver to the boot.wim. For instructions for how to add drivers, run across Add and Remove Drivers Offline Using DISM

Common usage scenarios

The following are common scenarios for Windows Deployment Services.

Scenario 1: The pocket-sized business

Fabrikam, Inc. is a manufacturer of towels with custom designs. Information technology is a small business with a unmarried part. Monica Brink, Fabrikam's resident Information technology professional, is responsible for maintaining the It infrastructure for the company, which consists of 25 client computers running Windows XP SP2 Professional person and a single server running Windows Server 2003 with SP2. The server functions as a file print server, Web server, Substitution server, Domain Name Organisation (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, and domain controller. The computers are linked by a 100-MBps Ethernet connectedness.

Monica is given the job of moving all of the customer computers to the Windows 7 (or Windows eight.1) operating system and upgrading the single server to Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2012 R2. It is important that she makes the switch equally quickly as possible so that office workers tin can continue their work.

In the past, she deployed a new operating system 1 computer at a time. This took her around 45 minutes per calculator (nearly nineteen hours to set up up the operating system on all the customer computers). For almost three days, Monica was unavailable to piece of work on anything else. Then she would spend virtually equally much time installing the applications on each computer.

Monica is the only Information technology professional at Fabrikam, which means that she also must help teach users most the new operating system. Therefore, it is important that she minimizes the corporeality of time she spends on deployment. To achieve this, Monica chooses to use Windows Deployment Services because she can:

  • Relieve time past running several installations simultaneously.

  • Use a custom install image with preinstalled applications.

  • Create an image past using the Windows Deployment Services Epitome Capture Sorcerer.

To begin, Monica does the following:

  1. Upgrades her server to Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2.

  2. Installs the Windows Deployment Services server role.

  3. Adds the Boot.wim from the product DVD (which contains a Windows PE paradigm, Setup.exe, and supporting files) by using the Windows Deployment Services MMC snap-in.

  4. Adds the Install.wim from the product DVD to the Windows Deployment Services server past using the MMC snap-in.

  5. Uses the MMC snap-in to create a capture paradigm from the boot paradigm she added in pace 3. This image contains Windows PE and a sorcerer that will capture her custom image into a .wim file.

All users at Fabrikam accept the aforementioned desktop hardware, which was purchased from a single vendor. To deploy a standard paradigm to the computers, Monica does the following:

  1. Boots a reference computer from the network and installs the Install.wim onto it, which contains the standard version of Windows.

  2. Installs Microsoft Part, the company's towel-design application, and the latest drivers from the manufacturer's site.

  3. Uses Sysprep to generalize the operating system.

  4. Reboots the computer into the capture image.

  5. Uses the Image Capture Magician to recapture the operating organisation and upload information technology straight to the Windows Deployment Services server.

Now, Monica is ready to install the new operating systems. She does not demand to migrate any user data, because all of the employees store their user information on a server (rather than on their hard disks). She reboots a client figurer and and then presses F12 to perform a network boot. This boots her into the Boot.wim file, which guides her through the installation process. She selects the disk partition and image she wants, and then the installation begins. While waiting for the image to exist practical to the beginning computer, Monica boots another computer and starts the same process on that one.

Scenario two: The medium-sized concern

Northwind Traders is a shipping house with three offices: a central office in Molar City, and branch offices in the towns of Brushville and Flosston. Ron Gable is ane of six IT staff members at Northwind Traders. His responsibility is maintaining the 250 client computers used by the company's employees. These are mostly desktop computers, simply the sales force uses laptops for client presentations. There are 200 computers in the primal role in Tooth City, and 25 each in the Brushville and Flosston offices. Each site has an internal network running at 100 MB per second (MBps), and the co-operative sites are connected to the Tooth City office past a T1 line. Ron has three Windows Deployment Services servers at the Tooth City function and i in each of the branch offices, which are administered remotely.

Ron's supervisor has tasked him with deploying Windows 7 (or Windows 8.1) to the whole company. Previously, this would take involved many expensive trips to Brushville and Flosston, and it would accept taken Ron several weeks to complete. He wants to use Windows Deployment Services to deploy Windows remotely; all the same, company policy dictates that there can be only ane DHCP server on the corporate network, and this server is located at the Molar City function. Remotely deploying images to the 50 computers at the branch offices would cause immense congestion on the connection.

Ron chooses to use Windows Deployment Services because with unattended setup, he tin:

  • Deploy Windows to computers at the co-operative sites without being physically present there.

  • Utilise his existing replication solution to deliver images to the branch site servers.

  • Use the network boot referral system to minimize network traffic between the co-operative sites and the central office.

Ron prestages each customer reckoner and assigns the appropriate co-operative office server every bit the referral server for each. This ensures that the client downloads files and images from the local server, which minimizes traffic on the line betwixt the offices.

Ron has ii standard operating organisation configurations — i for the desktop computers and ane for laptops that contains the sales presentations and drivers for projectors. Therefore, he builds two images: one with the desktop configuration, and ane with the laptop configuration (with no applications). He stores all the user data on one of the servers, so he can deploy Windows without preserving whatsoever existing data on the client computers.

Ron uses Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM) to writer two image unattend files — one for the desktop computers and one for the laptops. These files automate the installation, and so Ron does not need to be present at each computer during the installation. They also automatically install Microsoft Office and the line-of-business organisation application that the company uses for package tracking. He uses the Windows Deployment Services management tools to associate the unattend files with the images.

Side by side, Ron configures Windows Deployment Services so when a estimator is restarted, it will kicking from the network automatically and deploy the appropriate image (without requiring the users to press F12). After the image is applied to each computer, the reckoner is automatically joined to the corporate domain and restarted. He also configures the deployment so that when the computer restarts, the computer will not network boot unless F12 is pressed. This way, the computer and then boots to the hard disk drive drive and finishes the installation process. This prevents a kicking loop, in which the reckoner would continue booting into Setup. When the installation is completed, the calculator is ready for the user to log on.

Scenario iii: The large enterprise

Shu Ito is the network architect for Wide Globe Importers, a big enterprise with 5,000 employees in offices all over the world. The major employee centers are in the United states and Germany, and there are xiii branch offices in other countries. Shu has five servers available to him in the U.S. hub, two in the German hub, and one in each of the branch offices. The servers at the hubs are connected to the corporate Ethernet on 1 Gbps network interface cards (NICs); the other computers are on 100-MBps NICs. The hubs are continued by T3 lines, and the other sites are connected past T1 lines. All of the servers are hired on two-year leases.

Wide World Importers is replacing the accounting department's 200 computers with computers running Windows 7 (or Windows 8.ane). Shu would likewise similar to deploy a Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2 epitome to whatever newly leased servers in the U.South. office. The servers in the German function and the branch sites are the responsibleness of the local administrators. Currently, deployments at Wide World Importers are done by using RIS, and Shu wants to ensure that the existing computer building processes are preserved with the motion to Windows Deployment Services. In addition, it is important that each estimator is deployed with an operating system in a linguistic communication that is advisable for the users in that country or region.

Shu chooses to apply Windows Deployment Services considering it enables him to practice the post-obit:

  • Employ advisable language packs to reduce the required number of images.

  • Manage all of his Windows Deployment Services servers from a single computer.

  • Utilise multicast deployments to preserve bandwidth while deploying images to many computers concurrently.

  • Write scripts to automate common management tasks.

Shu upgrades his servers to Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 and creates his images. The vast majority of his deployments will be in English or High german, so he creates Windows 7 (or Windows 8.1) prototype in each language. Other languages will be installed by using external language packs, and applications volition exist downloaded by using Systems Management Server (SMS). After creating the images, Shu uploads the images and language packs to the Windows Deployment Services server.

Shu authors unattend files with Windows SIM. He then uses File Replication Service (FRS) to copy the images, language packs, and unattend files to the Windows Deployment Services servers effectually the world. Of the accounting computers used past Wide World Importers, 150 are in the U.S. office, 30 are in the German language role, and the remaining 20 are scattered around the world. Shu uses multicasting to deploy to the 150 computers in the U.S. function simultaneously. To practice this, he creates a multicast transmission for the relevant prototype on his Windows Deployment Services server.

To preserve the country and data on the previous computers, Shu uses the User State Migration Tool (USMT) to save all of the information and user configurations to a shared folder on the primary Windows Deployment Services server. Then he sets up each computer to boot from its local Windows Deployment Services server and to showtime automated setup by using the unattend files. The computers in the U.S. function volition automatically bring together the multicast transmission, while the computers in the other offices will deploy using unicasting. When the installation is completed, Shu runs a task with USMT to migrate the user data to each computer.

When the lease on a server expires and the server is replaced, Shu tin can use Windows Deployment Services to deploy his Windows Server images in the aforementioned fashion that he performed the RIS deployment.

Scenario Four: A Custom Deployment Using Ship Server

John Woods is the server maintenance engineer at the A. Datum Corporation data center. He is responsible for maintaining the 300 servers used by A. Datum Corporation's major customers. 1 of these customers is Adventure Works.

Adventure Works uses 40 servers to run a career Spider web site (which is backed past a database) for circus performers. Later the release of a popular picture nigh circus life, Adventure Works expects an increase in the use of their Web site. They order x additional servers to handle the anticipated traffic.

John wants to deploy operating systems to these servers by using Windows Deployment Services. He does non have AD DS running in this environment; he wants to store the configuration information for his computers in a SQL Server database. Every bit a result, he cannot use the standard Windows Deployment Services solution. In add-on, he wants to partition the disks in a standard configuration and also copy data (some for database servers, some for Web servers) earlier the unattended setup begins. John chooses to employ Windows Deployment Services because he tin:

  • Write a plug-in that reads configuration data for the computers from a data store other than Advertisement DS (the data shop is typically a database or a flat file).

  • Write scripts (to run in Windows PE) that perform preinstallation tasks and then call Setup to install the operating arrangement.

John creates 10 figurer accounts in his database for his 10 new servers, and he populates them with the required data. He installs the Windows Deployment Services server function on his server (choosing to install just the Transport Server office service). He then writes a PXE provider (a plug-in that reads information from the database and passes information technology to Windows Deployment Services) and registers it with the server. He creates a custom kicking image that contains Windows PE along with startup scripts to partition the disks and copy the data. Then he uses ImageX to capture one of his existing servers equally an install image.

Afterwards performing these initial tasks, John connects his servers to the network and boots them. They boot into Windows PE past using the configuration stored in the database. His scripts run to set up each computer for deployment, and the scripts cease by running ImageX to apply the operating system paradigm on each calculator.

Boosted references

For information nigh getting started with Windows Deployment Services, meet Windows Deployment Services Getting Started Guide for Windows Server 2012.

For more than data virtually Windows PowerShell cmdlets for WDS, see Windows Deployment Services Cmdlets in Windows PowerShell.