Effective planning helps minimize the time and effort spent in deploying Windows 2000 Professional. Planning for a custom and automated installation is critical for a successful installation. During this step of the process, you gather the data you need to choose the appropriate tool for installing the operating system in a way that best suits organization. As you plan for the installation, you must determine types of users and their needs; conduct an inventory of existing clients and assess your network infrastructure.
For an overview about how to plan Windows 2000 Professional deployment and installations, see "Deploying Windows 2000 Professional" in this book. For a thorough discussion about this subject, see the chapters under "Network Infrastructure Prerequisites" in the Deployment Planning Guide.
Assess the requirements of your users and define user types. User requirements and types are important factors in deciding what to customize and how to conduct an automated installation. For example, if a group of users needs a specific application, you must add it to the distribution folder or customize the answer file so that Setup installs it as part of the unattended installation.
There are many ways to classify user types. Some criteria include the level of computer knowledge (such as beginning, intermediate, or advanced); location (such as on-site, roaming, or remote); job function (such as members of marketing, research, or customer service departments), or job categories (such as manager, project lead, or individual contributor).
For example, after you have classified users into groups or types by computer knowledge, you determine how many and what choices you give a particular group in an installation. You want to allow less knowledgeable or task-oriented users to make few or no choices during installation. Advanced users might require additional choices during installation. So then in this case you might decide to have two different answer files—one for beginner users and another for those with more experience.
User requirements might also include language (English or Spanish), regional options (country/region and time zone), and applications (line-of-business applications, spreadsheets, word-processing applications).
Table 5.4 lists key planning issues related to user requirements and types and describes how these issues might affect your plan.
Table 5.4 Key Planning Issues for User Types and Requirements
| Issue | Effect on Your Plan |
|---|---|
| User types | User types affect the how you customize the Setup wizard, what security settings you use, network configuration, and so on. Examples of sections in the answer file that depend on user types include [URL] and [Components], which contain the parameters that define the settings for the Windows 2000 browser and components (such as Calculator, CD Player, and desktop wallpaper). |
| Language and regional options requirements | Language and regional requirements determine how to customize language and regional options in the [RegionalSettings] section of the answer file. |
| Application requirements | Application requirements for your users affect how you populate the distribution folder and how you modify the answer file. Determine which applications are required, which are optional, and which ones have to be advertised only to specific users. If Windows 2000 Professional is used in a Windows 2000 Server–based network, determine if applications will be deployed using Group Policy. If an application, must be part of an installation, automate the installation of applications by using Cmdlines.txt, the [GuiRunOnce] section of the answer file or Sysdiff. If the applications must be advertised later, use Windows Installer. The use of Windows Installer is beyond the scope of this chapter. For more information, see Windows 2000 Professional Help. |
Conduct an Inventory of Clients
Conduct an inventory of your existing clients to determine the number of clients, types of existing desktop operating systems, and types of hardware configurations in your organization. Table 5.5 lists key planning issues related to conducting an inventory and explains how these issues affect your plan.
Table 5.5 Key Planning Issues for Conducting an Inventory
| Issue | Effect on Your Plan |
|---|---|
| Types of desktop operating system | What desktop operating systems are used—whether Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, and so on—determine whether you perform an upgrade or a clean installation. Some tools, such as Systems Management Server, can only be used to upgrade existing Windows operating systems. Windows 3.x clients cannot be upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional; you must perform a clean installation. |
| Number of clients | The number of computers you have has an impact on your choice of tool for automating an installation. For example, if you have a large number of computers, Sysprep, RIS, or Systems Management Server are good choices. For a small number of computers, using the Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe programs in unattended mode (with the /u or /unattend switch, respectively) alone might be sufficient. |
| Types of hardware configuration | Hardware configurations affect your choice of tool for automating an installation and which hardware devices must be added to the distribution folder and specified in the answer file.
For an example of the effect of hardware configuration on your choice of tool, consider that if you choose to use Sysprep, all computers (master computer and destination computers) must have the same HAL, Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), and mass storage devices. For an example of the effect of hardware configuration on your migration path, consider the difference between keeping existing hardware and buying new hardware. For an example of the effect of hardware configuration on your adding hardware devices to the distribution folder and specifying then in the answer file, consider mass storage devices such as SCSI hard drives. Windows 2000 Professional Setup detects and installs most hardware devices automatically. However, to install a SCSI device that is not supported by Windows 2000 Professional during the text-mode phase of Setup, you must add the driver files for that SCSI device and its Textsetup.oem file to the distribution folder ($OEM$ subfolder) and you must modify the [MassStorageDrivers] section of the answer file with the appropriate driver entries. |
| Software and hardware compatibility | Ensure that the hardware on the target computer meets the minimum requirements mentioned earlier and that the individual components are listed in the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). For more information, see the HCL link on the Web Resources page at http://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources |
Assess Your Network Infrastructure
Assess your network infrastructure by identifying existing network protocols, speed of network links (network bandwidth), and whether or not there is a Windows 2000 Server–based network infrastructure in place when you install Windows 2000 Professional.
Table 5.6 lists key planning issues related to assessing your network infrastructure and describes how these issues affect your plan.
Table 5.6 Key Planning Issues for Assessing the Network Infrastructure
| Issue | Effect on Your Plan |
|---|---|
| Network infrastructure | Network protocols determine how you customize network protocol and associated adapter parameters in several networking sections of the answer file, such as the [NetAdapter], [NetProtocols], and [NetServices] sections. |
| Network bandwith | The amount of network bandwidth available affects your choice of installation tool and method. For example, in locations that do not have a high-bandwidth connection to a network server, using a CD-ROM drive or other local method of installing Windows 2000 Professional (carrying out winnt or winnt32 at the command prompt on each computer) is probably the best option. For users with high-bandwidth network connections, but whose computers do not have a remote boot–compliant network adapter or a computer that can be started from a CD, a network-based image duplication or manual installation method is the next best option. |
| Windows 2000 Server network infrastructure | Having an existing Windows 2000 Server infrastructure in place affects the range of tools you can use to automate and customize installations. For example, if you have a Windows 2000 Server–based computer configured as a RIS server, you can use RIS to image and automatically distribute customized images of a Windows 2000 Professional installation to users. |
Choose the appropriate tools and methods for your existing environment based on the information you gathered in your plan as explained in the previous sections. Table 5.7 provides guidelines to help you choose the appropriate tool for your particular environment.
Table 5.7 Guidelines for When to Use a Tool for Customizing and Automating Installations
| Tool | When to Use |
|---|---|
| Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe | Use Winnt.exe when running Setup on Microsoft® MS-DOS® or Microsoft® Windows® 3.1–based clients. Perform an automated installation by specifying the /u switch and using an answer file. Use this tool locally on each computer or remotely over the network.
Use Winnt32.exe when upgrading Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, or beta versions of Windows 2000 to Windows 2000 Professional. Perform an automated installation by specifying the /unattend switch. Use this tool to run Setup locally on each computer, remotely over the network, for a clean installation, or for an upgrade. These tools are appropriate for installing Windows 2000 Professional on a large number of clients with different hardware and software configurations. The major advantage of these tools is their flexibility. When you run the commands manually, the disadvantage is that you must use them on each computer individually. The disadvantage of this tool is that you must install applications individually on each computer. |
| Sysprep | Use Sysprep to install an identical configuration, including applications, on multiple computers. Sysprep allows you to duplicate a custom image based on a Windows 2000 Professional installation from a master computer to destination computers. Both the master and destination computers must have similar hardware and software configurations. The master computer and the destination computers must have the same HAL and mass storage device controllers.
You can also use Sysprep if you have slow network links, in which case you can burn the image of the master computer on CDs and use the CDs to distribute the customized installation. You can use Sysprep for clean installations only, not for upgrades. |
| Remote Installation Services (RIS) | Use RIS when you want to standardize a Windows 2000 Professional configuration on new computers or on computers with an existing operating system that you can replace with Windows 2000 Professional. With RIS you can create two types of media: CDs or images.
RIS uses the Pre-Boot eXecution environment (PXE) to initiate a Windows 2000 Professional installation from a RIS server computer and then install the operating system on a client's hard disk. The major advantage of RIS is that it allows you to standardize your Windows 2000 Professional installation, enables you to customize and control the end-user installation (you can configure the end-user Setup wizard with specific choices that can be controlled by using Group Policy), and gives you a choice of media to distribute the software. You can use RIS for clean installations only, not for upgrades. |
| Systems Management Server | Use Systems Management Server to perform managed upgrades of Windows 2000 Professional to multiple computers, especially those that are geographically dispersed.
The primary advantage of upgrading by using Systems Management Server is that you can maintain centralized control of the upgrade process. For example, you can control when upgrades take place, which computers to upgrade, and how to apply network constraints. You can use Systems Management Server for upgrades of Windows–based clients only, not for clean installations. |
Where Do You Find These Tools and Related Information?
Table 5.8 provides the locations of the tools and related information.
Table 5.8 Where to Find the Windows 2000 Professional Installation Tools
| Tool/Information | Go To |
|---|---|
| Winnt.exe | i386 |
| Winnt32.exe | i386 |
| Sysprep.exe | SupportToolsdeploy.cab on the Windows 2000 Professional operating system CD |
| Syspart | SupportToolsdeploy.cab on the Windows 2000 Professional operating system CD |
| RIS for Remote Installation Services | Included in Microsoft Windows 2000 Server under Administrative Tools. |
| Systems Management Server | Systems Management Server product CD. |
| Sysdiff | Microsoft OEM System Builder Web site at: |
| Setup Manager | SupportToolsdeploy.cab on the Windows 2000 operating system CD |
| Sample answer files | "Sample Answer Files for Windows 2000 Professional Setup" later in this book |
| Windows 2000 product family CDs | General packaging |
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Guide to Unattended Setup (Unattend.doc) | SupportToolsdeploy.cab on the Windows 2000 operating system CD |