http://strom.com/awards/370.html
This week's column comes to you care of
Adam Kuhn, who works for the Edison Electric Institute as a Senior LAN Analyst.
I've known Adam for a dozen years, and asked him to write about his latest project.
Feel free to contact him at akuhn@eei.org.
As an IT manager for a small trade association, I have
learned the hard way how to deploy Windows XP in our latest roll-out. The
trouble began when we bought 30 IBM Thinkpad X31s. With previous operating
systems, I would take the base machine and then build up a "golden"
image to deploy to the remaining 29 units.
Windows XP is different. While the sysprep
tool Microsoft provides will work with a factory or OEM build of XP, once deployed
you still have the 30 day activation scheme to complete. Quite simply, this is
unacceptable for me, since the last thing an IT department would want would be
for its end users to activate WinXP on each machine. How do you get around
this? Microsoft Volume Licensing. By using special Microsoft Media requiring a
Microsoft Key for installation, you can sysprep an XP computer and blast the
image to the other 29 (or 290 or 2900) machines. However, you must use the
Microsoft Branded Volume License Media, not the OEM build. That means installing
XP from scratch on each laptop.
A scratch build of XP isn't too bad
with a desktop, but an IBM Thinkpad has dozens of drivers that need to be
installed after the fact. IBM really shines here. They have a "Thinkpad
Software Installer" that in one fell swoop installs about 90 % of the
drivers all with only one reboot. The hard part is getting that remaining 10%.
It was even harder because IBM Thinkpad Support in Atlanta was giving me the
"we only support factory builds" nonsense. One woman hung up on me
when I mentioned installing XP fro scratch. Another person gave me the phone number of IBM Canada Direct
Sales to make me go away. But the good part is, the sales rep I spoke to in
Canada said he know someone who could help me. He called me back in a couple of
hours with the other fellow on the line. Turns out he used to work in Thinkpad
support and know EXACTLY what I was trying to do and which drivers were the
hard ones to find. He knew this only because he had done it himself.
Later on, a conscientious tech support
person from Atlanta did call me back to say they were at a dead-end and
couldn't figure out the problem. I
was able to show him how to resolve the issue based on what I had learned from
IBM Canada. IBM Canada, meet IBM Atlanta.
IBM Atlanta, meet IBM Canada.
You guys need to talk!
Bottom line is: PC manufacturers are
going to need to educate their staff about OEM versus MS Volume Licensing - and
they'll need to support their customers too. What are they going to do, hang up
on someone who just bought 500 machines? Sorry, we don't deal with rollouts?
Microsoft could do a little better on this as well. They do have this stuff
buried in their knowledgebase, but it's a hard to find. (I have links for you
at the end of this essay.)
The moral of my story is that we
wouldn't have to do this if it weren't for product activation. This is why
corporations are still rolling out W2K rather than XP, for the mere fact that
they haven't figured all this out. I don't blame Microsoft for product
activation. Microsoft and the PC
manufacturers need to coordinate on product activation and stop pretending that
corporate rollouts of multiple PC's are some foreign unsupportable way to run
Windows XP.
In large companies, they probably have
experts who focus solely on this issue. But in a company of 100-300 people, I
wonder how good an IT department can be at this, because there are so many
other responsibilities.
Here are some links on the issue of
WinXP deployment.
Thinkpad Software Device Driver Lists
from IBM support:
http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/tpad-matrix.html
How to Use Sysprep with Windows Product
Activation or Volume License Media to Deploy Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;299840
Support WebCast: Microsoft Windows XP:
Deployment Methods
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324874
Volume License Product Keys: All Other
Volume License Programs
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/vol/volkeys_other.mspx
How to Acquire Microsoft Product
Licenses Through Microsoft's Volume Licensing Programs
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/howtoacquire.mspx
Here is a set of PowerPoint slides from
Microsoft on how to deploy WinXP:
http://strom.com/pubwork/xpinstall.ppt
Entire
contents copyright 2004 by David Strom, Inc.
David
Strom, dstrom@cmp.com, +1 (516) 562-7151
Port
Washington NY 11050
Web
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