Windows 2000 OS and Application Management

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Windows 2000 - OS and Application Management

• Chris Brew
• Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
• J-Lab, HEPiX/HEPNT
• 30/10/2000

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Outline

• OS Installation
• Remote Installation Services
• Cloning by Disk Imaging
• Application Installation and Management
• Group Policies
• Msi files and WinInstall LE
• SMS
• Delta Deploy

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OS Installation

• Installing each new computer by hand from a CD is
  a dull and lengthy job, taking 1 hour per
  machine
• Microsoft know this and in Windows 2000 have
  provided the Remote Installation Service
• Third party suppliers already knew this and most
  of the NT4 Cloning packages have been upgraded to
  handle Windows 2000. I will talk about one of
  these PowerQuest Drive Image Pro

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Remote Installation Service

• Microsofts answer to the third party cloning
  products
• A network service that runs on the Windows 2000
  Server family
• Can create machine with just the base OS or with
  pre-installed applications
• Target machines must have a supported network
  card or a PXE boot ROM

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RIS Usage

• Image created by running executable (under
  Windows 2000) from the RIS server after the
  master is configured
• Target machine boots off floppy or over the
  network with PXE
• User provides credentials then selects which
  image to install
• Target copies files from the server and installs
• UnAttended.txt files (now called .sif) can be
  used to automate the question and answer part of
  the install

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RIS Pros and Cons

• Pros
• Handles the SIDs and computer names automatically
• Doesnt need admin access to run the client end
• (Fairly) simple to create images
• Retrofitting updated drivers into images is
  apparently possible

• Cons
• Unicast - gets very slow when installing multiple
  computers
• Cannot resize partitions during the install
• sif file parameters are limited and arcane
• Retrofitting drivers into old images is complex,
  I found it easier to create a new image

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Cloning by Disk Imaging

• Third party products to copy an NTFS partition to
  a new machine have been available for a number of
  years, Ghost, Image Cast, Drive Image
• Usually either ignore the SID (not really a
  problem under NT4) or provide a utility to scan
  the registry and replace it (Doesnt seem to work
  under Windows 2000)
• Microsoft SysPrep tool will remove and then
  regenerate the SID on reboot

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Drive Image v4

• Produced by PowerQuest.
• Comes with a bundle of additional utilities
• Partition Magic
• PQPrep easy interface to MS SysPrep
• Delta Deploy network application management
• Network boot disk builders
• Licensed on a per machine basis lt10/workstation

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DI4 Usage

• PQPrep tool provides an interface to MS SysPrep
  for generation of answer files
• Image is created after booting DOS (remote needs
  DOS network drivers, local needs FAT partition)
• Image can then be placed anywhere network share,
  multicast server, CD, zip, jazz
• Target machine boots DOS and unpacks image onto
  the local disk.

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Cloning/DI Pros and Cons

• Quick and Easy
• Multicast lets you do many at once without
  overloading the machine serving the image
• Image restore can be interactive, scripted or
  controlled from the server (multicast)
• Can control disk partitioning during restore

• Drivers
• Computer Names are auto generated to be unique
  and meaningless
• Need to build boot disks for all types of network
  card

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RIS Vs DI4

• RIS
• Single machine 21mins
• Four machines 48mins
• Support for PXE boot and a limited number of
  network cards
• Client driven

• Drive Image
• Single machine 12mins
• Four machines 14mins
• Can add manufactures drivers to list of
  supported cards
• Server driven

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App Installation and Management

• Installing the operating system is only the
  beginning, even if you can deploy applications
  with the OS, you will have to provide new
  software, updates/patches to applications and
  security fixes during the lifetime of the PC
• Many packages available to do this
• Group Policies
• System Management Server
• Delta Deploy

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Group Policies

• Group policies started out as system policies
  under NT4 as a method of applying different
  security settings to different groups of users
• Were not used much under NT4, they were difficult
  to set up and harder to debug if they didnt work
  as expected
• They have been greatly expanded under Windows
  2000 and have been integrated with the
  intellimirror and msi software install
  technologies

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msi and Intellimirror

• msi is the new windows installer technology
• At its heart is a script used to describe the
  files, shortcuts, registry keys, etc. created
  during the install
• If the msi package is deployed via a Group
  Policy, files are registered with the operation
  system and each time the application is run the
  files are checked and missing or changed files
  are replaced
• Cannot modify system files so no good for
  installing new drivers

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App Install by Group Policy

• Policies can be set at OU or Domain level
• Applications can be
• Published Available for users to install from
  Add/Remove Programs
• Assigned to users Available when the user logs
  in, installed on first use
• Assigned to computers Installed when the
  computer boots
• Apps can be set to uninstall or remain if the
  policy is removed

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Group Policies cont.

• When a user logs into a computer many different
  group policies might apply, if there are problems
  it can be very difficult to isolate what caused
  an individual setting
• Group policies can only be used to install
  packages that come with an msi file

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WinInstall LE

• Cut down version of WinInstall is supplied with
  Windows 2000 Server
• Like the old Resource Kit utility sysdiff it
  records changes in files, the registry and ini
  files but has a GUI front end and produces an msi
  file
• Limited by the msi file format

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SMS

• Much more than just a method of
  installing/controlling software but even for that
  much more configurable that group policies
• Windows 2000 is fully supported under SMS 2.0 SP2
  and partially supported by SMS 1.2 SP4
• SMS 2.0 seems to be simpler to understand and use
  than 1.0
• Most large sites seem to be planning to use SMS

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Delta Deploy

• Utility comes with Drive Image for installing and
  updating client machines
• Two Parts
• Monitor/Builder Watches the changes made during
  an install then creates a self contained
  executable to re-create it
• Delta Deploy Client/Server pair used to push
  jobs out to collections of machines

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Delta Deploy cont.

• Client runs as a service on NT/2000 so installs
  can be done as a privileged user
• Not limited to deploying software can be used to
  update drivers, apply registry hacks, maybe even
  service packs

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Summary

• OS Installs
• RIS is good for user on demand installs,
  service can be set up and left
• Cloning is good for installing a number of
  machines at once
• Application install and management
• Group policies may work in a small scale
  environment. For large sites the extra features
  of SMS seem to make it the most attractive. For
  medium sites third party solutions such as Delta
  Deploy have more functionality than GP with less
  complexity than SMS