Remote Installation Services (RIS) is a useful service for distributing images through the use of a PXE capable network card. I frequently use RIS to build new servers or rebuild older ones. Now granted it is not as fast as image based technology it suits me just fine.

If you are planning to upgrade to Windows 2003 service pack 2 you will need to know what it does to your RIS server. When you install Windows 2003 service pack 2 it installs a new service called Windows Deployment Service. This new service is what drives the remote installation process now.

The Remote Installation service still exists, however if you try and start it you will get a useful error message saying the service cannot be started. So first thing you will want to do is set the old server to manual or disabled start. Next set the Windows Deployment Service to start automatically.

But don’t panic. You now have a choice as to whether you keep using the legacy method, a mixed mode and native.

If you want to use your old images you will need to use legacy or mixed mode.

Initialize WDS

If you want to turn on mixed mode open a command prompt and enter:

WDSUTIL /verbose /progress /Initialize-Server /REMINST:”F:\RemoteInstall”

It configures WDS. Now you can use the WDS admin tool.

wdsadm

If you are not going to be converting the images straight away you will need to to change the boot x86 architecture line to OSChooser\i386\startrom.com

Yours might be located in a different place depending on your particular implementation.

Now you can continue to use the legacy images.

Uninitialize WDS

If you have no intention of using WDS in mixed or native mode you can simply uninitialize it.

WDSUTIL /Uninitialize-server

What next

If have the time it would probably be better to move forward and use WDS fully. You may need to recreate all the images, especially if you use Risetup to create the original legacy images.

If you used Riprep you can convert them using

WDSUTIL /convert

The new interface is still quite minimalist, but you certainly have more control over your remote installation options. Definitely a positive.

All I have to do now is start working on new images for my Windows 2008 servers.