Install WDS (Windows Deployment Services)

On your Windows server in the Server Manager: find Roles, and select Add Role. In the list of available roles, simply check Windows Deployment Services and follow the wizard making sure all sub-components of WDS are checked, which they should be by default. The default configuration can be used for most setups without changing anything.

You can get more detail for different servers and configurations in the Microsoft Technet article: Step-by-Step Guide for Windows Deployment Services in Windows Server 2003.

During the configuration wizard process you will be asked for a path to install/place the WDS files, and you want to make sure that is on a drive with plenty of available space. Think that you may be storing images for every edition of every version of Windows for every architecture! I believe it defaults to C:\Remote\Install and in my case, I merely changed the drive letter to D: to place it on that drive. A network share named REMINST will automatically be created pointing to this directory.

Before you continue:

If you are a PC Tech setting this up to deploy Windows installs to your customer’s PCs:
- you should right click on your server, go to the Properties > Client tab, and check the option: “Do not join the client to a domain after an installation“
- Leaving this option enabled is only handy if you are a network admin and need to join the PC to a domain (e.g. if setting this up for your company’s network to push installs to company owned computer.)
If your server is running DNS in addition to WDS, see the first issue under the Troubleshooting Issues section.
Additional considerations may be required if your server is also running DHCP. (Mine is not, so to be honest I’m not 100% familiar with the settings changes you may need to make.)
- Right click on your server, go to Properties > DHCP and review the settings there which may differ depending on your flavor of Windows server.
If you plan to use WDS to deploy Windows XP, you will want to go ahead and create an OS group for Windows XP
- Under your server > Install Images, right click in the empty space and select Add Install Group, then type a relevant name e.g. Windows XP.