Windows Deployment Services

Windows Deployment Services
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Included with	Windows Server 2008 through Windows Server 2022
Predecessor	Remote Installation Services
Successor	Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (WADK), Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, System Center Configuration Manager
Type	Remote deployment
License	Part of Microsoft Windows
Website	learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/hh831764(v=ws.11)

Last updated January 31, 2025

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is a deprecated component of the Windows Server operating system that enables centralized, network-based deployment of operating systems to bare-metal computers. It is the successor to Remote Installation Services (RIS).^[2] WDS officially supports remote deployment of Windows Vista and later, as well as Windows Server 2008 and later. However, because WDS uses disk imaging, in particular the Windows Imaging Format (WIM), it could deploy virtually any operating system. This is in contrast with its predecessor, RIS, which was a method of automating the installation process.

Automated image capture and apply

WDS functions in conjunction with the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) to load a miniature edition of Windows known as Windows PE for installation and maintenance tasks. WDS functions as both a storage repository for the PXE network boot images as well as a repository for the actual operating system images to be installed on the target computer.

When multiple boot images are available, PXE booting via WDS will present the end-user with a boot menu to select the image to load.

Windows PE automation using Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit

To simplify the tasks of capturing and applying images, two special scripted Windows PE boot images can be created which automate these tasks. These scripted Windows PE boot images are created using the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK; previously named Windows Automated Installation Kit, WAIK), in combination with Windows 7 installation media containing the source WIM images, and then added to the WDS server's boot image repository. The Windows PE boot images may be either 32- or 64-bit, but 32-bit tends to be more universally compatible across all potential hardware types.

A difficulty of Windows PE booting is that it needs to include network drivers and disk controller drivers intended to work with the target hardware to be imaged. The process of adding drivers to the Windows PE boot image can be automated using the WDS server console:

Select the source WIM image, which may be either a new one created from original Windows 7 installation DVDs (32- or 64-bit), or a previously configured WIM.
Select the drivers to install into the WIM
WDS mounts the WIM to a virtual path, adds drivers to the virtual path, and generates a new WIM
The updated WIM image is added to the boot image section of the WDS repository

This process can be repeated at a later time when a new system type needs to be captured but the current Windows PE Capture boot image does not include network drivers for it. The boot image is updated with the additional drivers using the WDS interface and automatically re-added to the WDS boot image collection to replace the original.

For specialty one-off systems this WIM driver update process is not necessary if the hard drive of the target system to be captured is removed from the source system after sysprepping, and is either installed in a computer with supported network drivers, or attached to the supported system using an external "USB to hard drive" adapter.

Automated apply process

Applying a captured image involves running a second Windows PE "Apply" boot image on the target system to receive the image. This boot image also needs the appropriate network and disk controller drivers as with the Windows PE Capture boot image.

The system is booted using PXE network booting and the Windows PE Apply image is loaded.
The operator logs on to the domain, and selects the boot image to apply.
A disk partitioning screen appears and the location for the target image is selected. If the target storage is unformatted, a default partition set is created. For Vista and Windows 7, a small 100 megabyte boot partition is created for storing bootloader data separate from the rest of the system partition. This boot partition is normally hidden from the Windows Vista/7 user.
The image data is applied to the selected partition, and the system reboots, either running the Sysprep manual mini-setup process or following the script created during the initial Sysprepping.

The WDS image creator may optionally select a separate WAIK / Sysprep installation script to be applied to the image during the first boot. This alternate script is selected within WDS by viewing the properties of each uploaded system image.

Manual image capture and deploy

It is technically possible to create scripts that manually perform the imaging, capture, and apply processes, using command line tools provided by Microsoft. However, the methods for doing this are complex and difficult.

In general, the tools involved are:

dism– Deployment Image Service and Management Tool, used to add drivers to Windows PE boot images.
imagex– used to capture and apply images. Creates either a single WIM structure, or can deduplicate data using a second shared resource WIM. Does not require a Windows Deployment Server to capture or apply images, and can work solely with a logged-on network share or mapped drive letter.
wdsutil– used to manage the WDS server without the graphical user interface, and to add captured images to the repository.

Using imagex to manually create a WIM does not require the source operating system to be sysprepped or for the source partition to contain a Windows operating system. Any type of Windows-accessible file system can be imaged, including MSDOS, but the source system either needs to be able to run Windows PE or the source system's hard drive is moved into a newer system that supports Windows PE.

Microsoft generally requires Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7 to be sysprepped before imaging, due to certain security-related disk data that Microsoft requires to be unique across duplicated system images. Sysprep randomizes this data when the image is applied to a new system.

Imagex does not have any disk formatting and partitioning capabilities. Separate Windows command line tools such as diskpart are needed to define partitions on the target system for imagex to use.

Related Research Articles

NTLDR is the boot loader for all releases of Windows NT operating system from 1993 with the release of Windows NT 3.1 up until Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. From Windows Vista onwards it was replaced by the BOOTMGR bootloader. NTLDR is typically run from the primary storage device, but it can also run from portable storage devices such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or floppy disk. NTLDR can also load a non NT-based operating system given the appropriate boot sector in a file.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preboot Execution Environment</span> Standard for booting from a server

In computing, the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE; often pronounced as pixie, often called PXE boot, is a specification describing a standardized client–server environment that boots a software assembly, retrieved from a network, on PXE-enabled clients. On the client side it requires only a PXE-capable network interface controller, and uses a small set of industry-standard network protocols such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Trivial File Transfer Protocol.

GHOST, now called Symantec™ GHOST Solution Suite (GSS) for enterprise, is a disk cloning and backup tool originally developed by Murray Haszard in 1995 for Binary Research. The technology was bought in 1998 by Symantec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BartPE</span> Software to create a customised Windows XP

BartPE is a discontinued tool that customizes Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 into a lightweight environment, similar to Windows Preinstallation Environment, which could be run from a Live CD or Live USB drive. A BartPE system image is created using PE Builder, a freeware program created by Bart Lagerweij.

Sysprep is Microsoft's System Preparation Tool for Microsoft Windows operating system deployment.

Windows Preinstallation Environment is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended to replace MS-DOS boot disks and can be booted via USB flash drive, PXE, iPXE, CD, DVD, or hard drive. Traditionally used by large corporations and OEMs, it is now widely available free of charge via Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (WADK).

In Linux systems, initrd is a scheme for loading a temporary root file system into memory, to be used as part of the Linux startup process. initrd and initramfs refer to two different methods of achieving this. Both are commonly used to make preparations before the real root file system can be mounted.

The Windows Imaging Format (WIM) is a file-based disk image format. It was developed by Microsoft to help deploy Windows Vista and subsequent versions of the Windows operating system family, as well as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs.

The Logical Disk Manager (LDM) is an implementation of a logical volume manager for Microsoft Windows NT, developed by Microsoft and Veritas Software. It was introduced with the Windows 2000 operating system, and is supported in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11. The MMC-based Disk Management snap-in hosts the Logical Disk Manager. On Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, Microsoft deprecated LDM in favor of Storage Spaces.

RIS, Remote Installation Services is a Microsoft-supplied server that allows PXE BIOS-enabled computers to remotely execute boot environment variables.

An NTFS reparse point is a type of NTFS file system object. It is available with the NTFS v3.0 found in Windows 2000 or later versions. Reparse points provide a way to extend the NTFS filesystem. A reparse point contains a reparse tag and data that are interpreted by a filesystem filter driver identified by the tag. Microsoft includes several default tags including NTFS symbolic links, directory junction points, volume mount points and Unix domain sockets. Also, reparse points are used as placeholders for files moved by Windows 2000's Remote Storage Hierarchical Storage System. They also can act as hard links, but are not limited to pointing to files on the same volume: they can point to directories on any local volume. The feature is inherited to ReFS.

Network booting, shortened netboot, is the process of booting a computer from a network rather than a local drive. This method of booting can be used by routers, diskless workstations and centrally managed computers such as public computers at libraries and schools.

Windows Vista contains a range of new technologies and features that are intended to help network administrators and power users better manage their systems. Notable changes include a complete replacement of both the Windows Setup and the Windows startup processes, completely rewritten deployment mechanisms, new diagnostic and health monitoring tools such as random access memory diagnostic program, support for per-application Remote Desktop sessions, a completely new Task Scheduler, and a range of new Group Policy settings covering many of the features new to Windows Vista. Subsystem for UNIX Applications, which provides a POSIX-compatible environment is also introduced.

VHD and its successor VHDX are file formats representing a virtual hard disk drive (HDD). They may contain what is found on a physical HDD, such as disk partitions and a file system, which in turn can contain files and folders. They are typically used as the hard disk of a virtual machine, are built into modern versions of Windows, and are the native file format for Microsoft's hypervisor, Hyper-V.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is a free software package from Microsoft for automating the deployment of Windows 10, Server 2019 and older Windows Server and desktop operating systems.

EasyBCD is a program developed by NeoSmart Technologies to configure and tweak the Boot Configuration Data (BCD), a boot database first introduced in Windows Vista and used in all subsequent Windows releases. EasyBCD can be used to set up multi-boot environments for computers on which some versions of Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X can be simultaneously installed; EasyBCD can also be used for adding entries to bootable tools and utilities, as well as modifying and controlling the behavior of the Windows boot menu. EasyBCD 2.3 introduced additional support for creating and managing entries for UEFI-based Windows entries in the boot menu. As of June 20, 2011 with the release of EasyBCD 2.1, it is no longer free for use in commercial environments which require the purchase of a paid license, however it remains free for home and non-profit use without limitations.

Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit, formerly Windows Automated Installation Kit, is a collection of tools and technologies produced by Microsoft designed to help deploy Microsoft Windows operating system images to target computers or to a virtual hard disk image in VHD format. It was first introduced with Windows Vista. WAIK is a required component of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

A System Deployment Image is a file format used primarily with Microsoft products to contain an arbitrary disk image, including boot sector information.

Windows Setup is an installer that prepares a computer for a Microsoft Windows installation by allowing the user to pick installation settings and copying the files to the drive.

Opsi is a software distribution and management system for Microsoft Windows clients, based on Linux servers. Opsi is developed and maintained by uib GmbH from Mainz, Germany. The main parts of Opsi are open-source licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License.

References

1 2 3 "Windows Deployment Services (WDS) boot.wim support". Microsoft 365 Library. Microsoft. 2 December 2022 – via Microsoft Learn.
↑ "Windows Deployment Services Overview". Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 Technical Library. Microsoft. 31 August 2016 – via Microsoft Learn.

External links

Official website
Windows Deployment Services on Windows App Development Center (Microsoft)

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[wDS-deprecation-1] 1 2 3 "Windows Deployment Services (WDS) boot.wim support". Microsoft 365 Library. Microsoft. 2 December 2022 – via Microsoft Learn.

[2] "Windows Deployment Services Overview". Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 Technical Library. Microsoft. 31 August 2016 – via Microsoft Learn.

[1]

[2]