The default behavior for creating Altiris boot disks requires the network administrator to be physically located near the deployment server to pop in a floppy disk and right-click to create. However, if the deployment server is running terminal services and you have sufficient rights to access the Deployment Service, the Boot Disk Creator allows you to copy the actual files that are written to the disk during boot disk creation.

First, make sure your target location can be browsed as a Windows folder. You might even set up a local writable NTFS share. Within Altiris Deployment Server, launch the Boot Disk Creator and set up a New Configuration or select an existing configuration. From the list of Altiris boot disk Configurations available, expand the configuration you wish to create a new bootable floppy disk from. Connect to your local NTFS share using its UNC path (e.g. \\your_computer_name\path\to\share) and type in your network credentials if necessary. Once you have the Boot Disk Configuration and local NTFS share folder windows side by side, simply right click each file and folder under the selected configuration, copying and pasting into your NTFS share and disconnect.

Back on your local workstation, pull up your NTFS share (be sure to turn off sharing on this folder since you're done copying files to it now) and insert a blank floppy disk. In My Computer, format the floppy disk by Creating an MS-DOS startup disk. This will write the systems files to disk necessary to boot from. Once the format has completed, copy the configuration files from your local NTFS share onto the floppy disk.

This disk may be used to create or deploy system images by typing the "rdeploy" command at the prompt. You may need to type in the appropriate username/password to connect back to your Deployment Server with a UNC path while booting from this floppy disk. If you run into any connectivity issues, list the directory contents of the floppy disk and type any files to read scripts such as AUTOEXEC.BAT or STARTNET.BAT. You can make changes to the floppy disk and/or its bootable scripts from the local workstation you originally created the boot disk from. Also, don't forget to make additional copies of the disk to deploy multiple workstation images at the same time...

Enjoy!

 

 

 

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err.. sorry, but what is altiris ?
I know most of the features you are talking about, but I don't know what is Altiris. Is this part of 2003 server ?

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It's a deployment solution, for installing OS images or software packages remotely. It is not, however, independent from any particular operating system (in other words, it doesn't come preloaded with server versions of Microsoft Windows).

For example, if you have a lab of 50 workstations, rather than using an installation disc at each physical workstation, you can simply set up and configure one system with the operating system and software suite of choice (don't forget Deep Freeze ;-). A typical setup would include Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP 2, Microsoft Office, anti-spyware/anti-virius and other productivity software. Altiris allows you to install a network bootable partition on remote clients so that when you've finished imaging the first prototype, you can deploy that image remotely; usually two or more clients at a time.

Cloning is perhaps the best way to describe it. The amount of work/time it would take to setup, install and configure 50 workstations, you could do on one system, set it and forget it. There are other free disk cloning solutions out there, but Altiris is great for doing a lot of remote administration tasks on the software level (eg. remote control, permissions, visual how-to demonstration for the end-user, etc).

 

 

 

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