User manual ACRONIS SNAP DEPLOY

[. . . ] Copyright © Acronis, Inc. , 2000-2005. Windows and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to are the property of their respective owners. Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. [. . . ] Prepare target computers for deployment ­ create bootable media or configure Acronis PXE server to boot up target computers. For more information on initial setup and bootup PCs see Section 4. 5 of this Guide. For detailed information on configuring PXE server see 4. 6 of this guide. 4. 1. OS preparation for disk duplication process Before Master Image creation and deployment, it is recommended to prepare operating system. For this purpose you can use Microsoft Sysprep tool. Sysprep is a tool designed for corporate system administrators, OEMs, and others who need to deploy operating system on multiple computers. After performing the initial setup steps on a single system, you can run Sysprep to prepare the source computer for cloning. Sysprep assigns a unique security ID (SID) to each destination computer the first time the computer is restarted. To use Sysprep as part of the disk duplication process, the following requirements must be met: The master installation and the destination computers must have compatible hardware abstraction layers (HALs). For example, HAL APIC and HAL MPs (multiprocessor systems) are compatible, whereas HAL PIC (Programmable Interrupt Controller) is not compatible with either HAL APIC or HAL MPs. The mass-storage controllers (IDE or SCSI) must be identical between the reference and destination computers. Plug and Play devices such as modems, sound cards, network cards, video cards, and so on, do not have to be the same. However, any device drivers not included in Drivers. cab should be included in the master installation before you run Sysprep. Alternatively, make sure the uninstalled drivers are available on the destination computer at first run, so Plug and Play can detect and install the drivers. We strongly recommend that you read articles about Sysprep and disk duplication in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. You can download Sysprep from www. microsoft. com or extract it from deploy. cab located on Windows NT/2000/XP/Server 2003 installation CD. 22 Copyright © Acronis, Inc. , 2000-2006 Pre-deployment operations 4. 1. 2. Running Acronis Master Image Creator Acronis Master Image Creator allows you to create master image both on local (with bootable version of the Acronis Master Image Creator) and remote computer (with Acronis Snap Deploy Management Agent installed). Acronis Snap Deploy also works with images created in Acronis True Image. Unlike a master image created on a local computer with bootable version of Acronis Master Image Creator, the image created on a remote computer automatically includes the Acronis Snap Deploy Management Agent. Note that agent will be automatically installed on all target computers after deployment. If you want to manage files and execute applications on all target computers after deployment, you can use remote master image creation. But in most cases, there is no need to add to a master image with additional software. We strongly recommend that you use a bootable version of Acronis Master Image Creator to create a master image on a local machine instead of master image creation on a remote computer. To create master image: 1. Select Create master image in the Acronis Snap Deploy Management Console main window. Click Next in the Master image creation wizard welcome window. Choose image creation mode: Create master image using bootable media or Create master image on a remote computer. Figure 8. Image creation mode Copyright © Acronis, Inc. , 2000-2006 23 Pre-deployment operations If you chose Create master image on a remote computer in the next window you should connect to master computer. Please, note that Acronis Snap Deploy Management Agent must be installed on a remote computer to perform a master image creation. [. . . ] To do this, check the parameter If the computer was turned off at the time when the task was scheduled to run, the system will perform the task the next time it is restarted. In this case, the task will be executed at the nearest startup. Setting up weekly execution If you select weekly execution, you will have to specify some additional parameters. First, the Start time (hours and minutes). Copyright © Acronis, Inc. , 2000-2006 53 Remote management operations Figure 43. Weekly parameters Specify periodicity in the Every x weeks (each week, in a week, etc. ) Check weekdays to execute the task on. [. . . ]