Using WDS to deploy to a Mac (or any PC without PXE)
by cj on Oct.12, 2009, under Howto
I have been trying for a long time to find a way to image Macs from our WDS server to no avail…Macs don’t have PXE boot! WDS has had a feature to allow you to create a “Discover” image and a resulting disc to boot from. However, typically when just using the GUI to create this disc, it boots up with a command prompt window, runs winpeinit and then that’s it. After some deep searching, I found a blog with accurate instructions for how to actually create a disc that will not only boot up to winPE but also launch straight into the WDS deploy on a given server. It does require command line but the latest WAIK has some very verbose and useful tools, making it not too hard even for a WDS novice.
Thanks to David Bolton’s blog: http://www.davidbolton.com/?p=24
I also had to extract the network drivers from the Snow Leopard bootcamp disc but for general purposes, adding all of the drivers from the latest LAN Driver Pack to the disc image will make sure to cover a wide variety of machines. Check out my previous post for the easiest way to add these via command line!
Leave a Reply
-
Howdy.
You've reached the new home of the Zlaxfish Network! Check back or subscribe to the RSS for the latest updates!
Recent Flickr Additions
May 21st, 2010 on 5:10 pm
So quick question for you… you are talking about imaging Macs with OSX, right? The picture shows a MacBook Pro running 7. I’m pretty new to having to support Macs. Just making sure I’m on the right path here before investing too much time. Thanks for your help!
-Ben
May 27th, 2010 on 11:31 pm
This is actually describing imaging Macs with Windows, not OS X. So if you want to put 7 on a bunch of Macs, here’s how I did it.