Evaluation need help

[Capacci_1]

Hi,
We're considering to evaluate RDP for unattended installation of WIN 2003 server on 15 Proliant DL380.
For now, we're starting with the documentation and need some pointers to clarify several things.
First of all, the documentation points to a "Micrososft Windows unattented setup guide" to add new variable in an response file, do you know where i can find this documentation ?
We plan to start trying install windows + sybase in "one shot" if possible, could you share experience about servers deployment with database ?

Any feedback will be very appreciate.

[Ken Henault · Accepted solution]

The unattended setup guide is the help file ref.chm in the \support\tools\deploy.cab on the Windows 2003 CD. For Windows 2000 similar information is in deploy.doc in the same place.

RDP will do a good job of landing the base OS on it's own. You will need to script the sybase part. It can be done in one job, just add additional steps to the scripts that come with RDP. I strongly recommend copying the canned scripts before you edit them so you have a working copy to back to if you break anything.

A quick search of Sybase web site I found "Installation Guide for Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.5.1 on Windows" that discusses how to do a scripted install of Sybase. Just copy the required files to the RDP server's eXpress share, and make the adjustments to Sybase's instructions to load from there instead of CD.

If there are things you want to automate that don't come with an unattended option, I highly recommend AutoIt which is available at:
http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.php

You can down an evaluation copy of RDP at: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/rdp/index.html

This will give you a 7 day 10 system license, then by registering, you can get another 30 days fo 10 systems.

When you get it to work, post a copy of your scripts. It will save somebody from reinventing the wheel.

[Capacci_1]

Thank you very much for your reply.
I just got into RDP installation. Before discussing the good advices you gave me, i'd like to clarify a point: during install of RDP
(Altiris eXpress Deployement Server Installation, step 26 of official documentation)it is given the choice to install "Remote clients" for win nt computers.
I'm following the documentation but i can't figure out what those clients are made for.

[Jason McGee]

Each machine that connects back to the RDP server must be running an agent. New machines that do not already have an OS installed load a pre-boot OS (DOS) and a DOS agent. This option during setup allows you to install the agent to machines that already have Windows installed. After setup is complete you can do the same thing using the Remote Agent Install utility - from the RDP console select Tools > Remote Agent Installer. YOu can find more info on this in the deployment.pdf file which is located in the \docs directory of your RDP installation.

[Capacci_1]

Thanks Jason for the info.
One more thing : i've tried a deployment of a win2003 server + PSP.
It works perfectly and i'm enthusiast with rdp but i saw that every time i launch a deployment there's a file created in the directory \lib\osconfig\yyyy, there's also a default.txt.
I put the Product key in default.txt and it works but how do i do for parameters that fit to only one machine ? My guess is to know exactly when the specific answer file (call 500000x.txt) appears cause i would like to make different parameters for each machine.
Sorry for my language, i do my best.

[Ken Henault]

The best way to use RDP is to let the script deploy a "generic" windows configuration, then right click on the server, and select configure. This will bring up a dialog box where you can set the hostname, join the domain, set up TCP/IP, ETC. You can do this configuration step while the server is deploying. It will create an additional job that will get run when the deployment is complete.