Preparing and Configuring Boot Images (part 1) - Creating Boot Images

1/7/2013 3:50:48 PM

Windows Deployment Services and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit use boot images. They are used to boot up bare-metal machines and to allow a setup routine to wipe an existing PC and replace its operating system. ConfigMgr has the same needs. Nothing new is used here. The same core technologies are reused. The only thing that is different is how the boot images are created and how they are shared.

A boot image is created in the Configuration Manager Console. Drivers are added to allow access to the network and to mass storage controllers. The boot image is shared to existing PCs via a distribution point, which is one of the Site Role Services that was deployed. The boot image is shared to bare-metal machines via the PXE service point (which makes use of the underlying Windows Deployment Services), which also has a distribution point that will be populated.

1. Creating Boot Images

Let's start by creating the 32-bit or x86 boot images. ConfigMgr gives you the tools to create 32- and 64-bit boot images from within the Configuration Manager Console.

Navigate into Computer Management\Operating System Deployment, as shown in Figure 1. You are going to be spending a lot of time here if you plan on doing ZTI using ConfigMgr.

Figure 1. Operating System Deployment folder
To create a new boot image, right-click on Boot Images and select Create Boot Image Using Microsoft Deployment. This launches a wizard, as you can see in Figure 2.
On the first screen, enter a path for where, in the distribution point shared folder that you created earlier, you want to store the new boot image. Try to use a naming standard.
As with previous package creations, enter descriptive content into Name and Version, which is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 2. Boot image package source

Figure 3. Boot image General Settings
The Image Options screen allows you to configure the boot image. You can choose the architecture (x86 or x64). We will start by creating a 32-bit (x86) boot image, as shown in Figure 4. You can select optional fonts for Asian regional settings support. You can even add a custom image as the background when the boot image is running or additional files for troubleshooting. Make sure that ADO is selected as it will be required.

Figure 4. Boot Image Options

The boot image is created. All that remains is to make the boot image available to machines on the network. As you might remember, you need to add the boot image to a distribution point.
Navigate into the Boot Images folder, select the new boot image, right-click on it, and select Manage Distribution Points Wizard. Choose the option to copy the package to new distribution points.
Select both the normal distribution point and the PXE distribution point. The normal distribution point will be used to distribute the boot image when an existing installation of Windows will be replaced with a ConfigMgr-distributed installation image. The PXE distribution point will be used when a computer (for example, bare metal) is booted up onto the network to do a fresh installation.
Repeat this process to create and share an x64 or 64-bit boot image. It is required to handle some hardware that reports itself as x64 even if you are distributing an x86 installation image.

Once a boot image is created, you can open its properties to view or edit the settings. For example, you might develop your boot image and later add that background image to brand the deployment solution with the company logo. You could enable distribution points to be updated on a recurring schedule to accommodate changes to the boot image.