How do I install Windows over a network???

September 30th, 2003, 1:12 pm

no problem , at least we came up with a solution to his problem

October 2nd, 2003, 1:03 pm

Sorry... I've been stuck on a school-camp (in the middle of nowhere) for a few days! No PC! Thank's for all the help, I guess I'll have to get hold of either a CD-rom, floppy-drive or an adapter! Though, is ModernDestroyer's idea possible? It would help, because swedish computer stores are CRAP!!! (They don't have anything)

ModernDestroyer wrote:

If there was a way to have the network broadcast a command.com file, then maybe you could set the BIOS to look for a LAN connection to boot from.

//SPDE

October 12th, 2003, 6:05 am

on my motherboard my bios do allow me to switch from booting from my cd-rom drive to a lan, u might be able to as well, but i never tried it. it may take all the data it needs from the windows on the other computer
im no expert, u got nothing to mess up lol, u aint even got an os

October 12th, 2003, 6:30 am

kalbal -- when you boot to the network, you're gonna want to attach to a
shared cd-rom with the setup disk (or a folder with it copied) so you can
run the install. Maybe that's what you meant, but when i read your post,
it sounds like you want to extract an existing windows directory or
something. Just wanted to be clear that it would never work if you did
that. Otherwise, you've got the right idea.

October 15th, 2004, 6:29 am

Hi,

Was looking at your post, but no one actually said how to install windows across a network?

ta.

October 15th, 2004, 8:23 am

Well a year later, I actually think I can answer this. On a simple peer to peer network I've never seen how this is possible. The primary problem is that your network card on the computer you are trying to create an installation on needs to be able to communicate with the computer that has the installation disk or files. However, if you are on a Windows 2000 or 2003 domain this is quite doable. Think about it. Some system admins have to install hundreds of these at a time. They do it with unattended installs and usually use a combination of 2 Windows server services - Setup Manager and Remote Installation Services (RIS).

Both are much too complex to explain in a forum post but you can read about unattended installs and these services on the web. A very excellent resource if you can get your hands on a copy is either Mastering Windows 2000 Server or Mastering Windows 2003 Server, both by Mark Minasi. He devotes nearly an entire chapter in both books to this process.

I am aware of an open source tool that roughly does the same thing but I've never used it and can't really speak for how well it does:
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

I know that doesn't really explain a detailed approach to how to do it, but as I said it is rather complex to set up and get correct so you don't botch your install. Hopefully that will get you headed in the right direction.

October 16th, 2004, 9:53 am

well thank you, as a sixth form student setting up a server seems a little out of reach at the moment! i was hoping i could just use a plug and play network card and initilize the setup from a NAS device. but thank you you have been most helpful. i will certainly have a look at those books your mentioned.

October 16th, 2004, 12:07 pm

I have a little Toshiba Libretto 70ct that I use to console into routers, switches, telephone switches, all sorts of stuff. It is extremely handy, and fits in my BDU pocket!

Anyway, this has no CD-ROM drive. It has a floppy, but i didn't feel like installing Windows 98 over floppys. What I ended up doing is making a null modem serial cable and transfering Windows 98 setup over that. I made a boot CD for my computer which contained PROCOMM and all the 98 files, and made a boot floppy for the Libretto with PROCOMM as well. I set the files to copy over (180mb if I recalll) using the KERMIT protocol, went to bed, and when I woke up, I installed 98 with no problem straight off the hard drive.

I can provide more details if you want to try this route.

October 17th, 2004, 4:06 pm

hello..
i am new to the whole forum scene... here is my solution...
I am pretty sure that his notebook has the option to boot from a USB disk. Configure the notebook to boot from USB. Then, create a bootable USB disk. Once booting, give it the network path.. Voila.. should work.

July 5th, 2005, 7:33 pm

Here's my dilemma.

I have a laptop with out a cd drive, or an operable OS (RedHat 7.0 is not compatible with my vid card, all I get is the kernel). I'd like to install win2k pro on that machine. I have the CD, and another computer. I was wondering if I could find a way to boot my laptop to the shared cd drive? Can anyone think of something?

I've tried using a network boot disk and I can access the cdrom and I can use winnt.exe, but when the laptop reboots, it boots to the floppy again or to my old RedHat OS.