Let the Software Do the Work: Automating Installation

Normally, user input drives the Windows 2003 installation program: from character-based prompts during the initial load phase and by user navigation of menus and input items during the later phases. As an alternative, text files called answer files may drive Windows 2003 installation, making it possible to automate installation more or less completely. Script-driven installation can be especially handy when you must install more than two or three copies of Windows 2003 at any given time.

Windows 2003 supports more methods for automating installation than previous implementations (such as Windows NT 4.0), including the following:

• A new [ GuiRunOnce ] section in the answer file contains a list of commands to execute when a user logs on to the system the first time afte the graphical user interface (GUI) mode portion of the installation completes.

• You can create a set of automated commands to complete the Setup process without requiring human intervention (at least, as long as no errors are encountered ).

• You can even automate the first logon after Windows 2003's setup completes to install and configure selected applications, and then shut down the system thereafter - all from the magic answer files!

How do you get a piece of this magic? Well, you can search for and edit a predefined answer file called unattend.txt in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit. Or you can work with a utility called the Setup Manager, which you must install on your system after Windows Server 2003's base installation completes, to create an answer file for you from scratch. (To install Setup Manager, double-click Support\Tools\deploy.cab on the Windows Server 2003 installation CD.)

Windows 2003's Setup Manager is similar to the Windows 98 utility of the same name . This outstanding tool provides buttons that map to various sections of the installation process and guides you through interactive dialog boxes to specify a script for a single system installation or for multiple systems at the same time.

Windows 2003 also includes tow utilities that are somewhat Ghost-like in their capabilities. (Ghost is a popular system imaging utility for Windows NT 4.0 that allows administrators to set up a single installation, take a snapshot, and then customize that same snapshot to install one, two, or many machines at the same time.) These two utilities follow:

• Sysprep: A utility designed to duplicate disk contents when installing multiple, identically configured machines at the same time. First you create a normal installation on a single machine, and then you install the applications you want to distribute. Next, you use Sysprep to distribute copies of this configuration to other identical systems elsewhere on the network. It doesn't get much easier than this!

• Syspart: A utility designed to clone installation across multiple machines where the hardware is dissimilar. It works as an extension of the unattended install facility with a default unattend.txt answer file.

Warning 

Consult the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit (published by Microsoft Press) or the TechNet CD to find out all you can about the various installation files before starting any big jobs. You'd also be well advised to try a couple of trial runs using these tools before attempting to automate the installation of one or more production servers.