Deploying and Administering Windows Vista® Bible

Chapter 2. Creating Basic Windows Images

The benefit of using image-based installations has become apparent to even Microsoft; they have adopted it as their primary installation technique. However, the generic image that Microsoft supplies on its deployment media most likely will not meet the needs of your organization. Most organizations require additional applications, such as Microsoft Office suites and antivirus protection, and additional configuration changes, such as firewall and Windows Update configuration. Although many of these added applications can be configured after deployment, including these changes as part of the deployment process can save time and increase system security.

Your first step is to create customized Windows deployment images. Later chapters go into more detail about customizing (Chapter 6) and deploying images (Chapters 7 and 8). This chapter focuses on the direct steps you may perform in order to create stable, automated systems that you can use across a multitude of hardware models.

The process of creating and deploying customized images includes:

• Building a deployment server

• Creating an answer file

• Installing and configuring a reference computer

• Creating Windows PE boot media

• Capturing an image of the reference computer

• Applying the customized image

The following sections will walk you through the process.

Building a Deployment Server

Establishing a deployment server is the first step to building and deploying images. The term deployment server is used to ...