Reference for myself (and anyone else that’s interested) - here’s my unattend.xml file for installing Windows XP SP2 completely unattended. Using this in conjunction with a sysprep.inf file, you can achieve a completely unattended XP install using Windows Deployment Services.
Microsoft’s forthcoming server platform, Windows Server 2008, is out pretty soon now. So, as I’m going to be deploying this pretty soon after its release, I thought it a good idea to start playing with one of the more interesting parts of Windows Server 2008, the Core installation.
Over the last few weeks at work I’ve been working on host clustered Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 guests. Here’s how I go about setting up a new guest - it’s not particularly complicated but it is very long-winded. Caution: this article contains almost exactly the same information as Microsoft’s guide. I just re-wrote it to make it (a) more specific to my environment and (b) more readable for the people I work with.
One of the projects I have been working on recently is to try and improve overall application availability, without spending a large sum of money. I’m constrained on the operating systems I can use (mainly restricted to Windows Server Standard Edition but some Linux too) and my budget is non-existent. So, after a bit of reading of what is and isn’t possible, I decided to investigate Microsoft’s Virtual Server in a host clustered environment.
A few months ago, I bought myself a Buffalo LinkStation Pro to store all of my home files. Now, whilst this box functions very well as a standalone NAS box, there are some frustrations with it - especially the fact that I can’t stream music and videos directly from it to my Xbox 360. So, when Microsoft announced Windows Home Server, designed specifically to act as the media centre for a home I thought "great!" Now I’ve been invided to the beta, I had a go at getting it up and running…
In my last post I went about installing a Windows Deployment Services server and creating a couple of simplistic boot images, ready to perform automated deployment of Windows clients. Now I’m ready to start doing something useful with my new server - let’s get started!