ACRONIS SNAP DEPLOY -, Manual

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Pre-deployment operations
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Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2006
Chapter 4. Pre-deployment operations
Before deployment, you have to prepare the master PC and target computers.
You will need to do the following:
1.
Create image of master computer. Full information on master image
creation can be found in section 4.1 of this Guide.
2. Prepare target computers for deployment – create bootable media or
configure Acronis PXE server to boot up target computers.
For more information on initial setup and bootup PCs see Section 4.5 of
this Guide.
For detailed information on configuring PXE server see 4.6 of this guide.
4.1. Creating master image
4.1.1. OS preparation for disk duplication process
Before Master Image creation and deployment, it is recommended to prepare
operating system. For this purpose you can use Microsoft Sysprep tool.
Sysprep is a tool designed for corporate system administrators, OEMs, and
others who need to deploy operating system on multiple computers. After
performing the initial setup steps on a single system, you can run Sysprep to
prepare the source computer for cloning. Sysprep assigns a unique security ID
(SID) to each destination computer the first time the computer is restarted.
To use Sysprep as part of the disk duplication process, the following
requirements must be met:
ƒ
The master installation and the destination computers must have
compatible hardware abstraction layers (HALs). For example, HAL APIC
and HAL MPs (multiprocessor systems) are compatible, whereas HAL
PIC (Programmable Interrupt Controller) is not compatible with either
HAL APIC or HAL MPs.
ƒ
The mass-storage controllers (IDE or SCSI) must be identical between
the reference and destination computers.
ƒ
Plug and Play devices such as modems, sound cards, network cards,
video cards, and so on, do not have to be the same. However, any
device drivers not included in Drivers.cab should be included in the
master installation before you run Sysprep. Alternatively, make sure
the uninstalled drivers are available on the destination computer at
first run, so Plug and Play can detect and install the drivers.
We strongly recommend that you read articles about Sysprep and disk duplication in
the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
You can download Sysprep from www.microsoft.com or extract it from
deploy.cab located on Windows NT/2000/XP/Server 2003 installation CD.