Deploying Windows Vista: A Power User's Toolkit

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If you would like to go for hundreds or thousands of desktops of Windows Vista around the world, Microsoft has finally upgraded its deployment tools in magical way, as the architecture of Windows Vista is componentized. But the thing is these deployment tools are not just advantageous to the biggest corporations all over the world. If you are at all comes into the category of a power user, a tinkerer, or someone who ends up having to reinstall Windows fairly regularly, then Vista's newfangled deployment tools will definitely seems useful to you.

Microsoft has completely rearchitected Windows for the first time since, well, Windows 95, breaking the system down to core pieces, called modules, which are mostly independent of each other. For example each version of Windows included a fundamental module that was based on the English language, but if any PC maker or an IT administrator wanted to create a French version of Windows, has to add the French language on top of Windows and like wise.

But Windows Vista is language independent, ore foundational module of Windows is much smaller as a result, and it will now be easier for Microsoft, IT administrators to roll out these kind of patches, as they don't need different ones for all of the languages Windows supports. Also one more change in Windows vista is a file-based disk imaging model by Microsoft. In earlier versions of Windows, Setup spent much time copying thousands of files from the Windows install media like a CD or a network-based file share.

This file transformation takes a lot of time because each file had to be expanded as well as copied in the same directory structure as at the destination. In Windows Vista the image-based model, ships as a single image file containing, most basic components required for the OS to up and running. While installing Windows Vista, the Setup copies only that single image file to the hard drive and expand it, creating a simple Windows installation. After that, custom features get added and the OS gets installed.

At last Microsoft improved its Windows deployment answer file, it is a text-based file in which the answers to the questions answered during interactive Setup by you stored, when you are doing a clean install, upgrade, or a dual-boot. In that 'What is your product key?' like questions are included as well as the answer file contains answers to questions that are not at all asked during Setup.

In this way we can go for custom Windows install images like this while installing Windows Vista that is not possible to obtain using just the interactive Setup. But if you want is a standard Windows install, creating your own answer file, is good as one can use it during an automated Windows install also, where you won't have to look constantly when the installation process is in progress. It actually automates the whole process.

The one which do it is nothing but the Microsoft's Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). It's free and also this kit includes a number of tools, including the User State Migration Tool (USMT), also for migrating settings from Windows 2000 and XP to Vista; XImage, for editing Vista image files; Windows System Image Manager, for configuring custom Windows Vista images and creating unattended installation files; and Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment), Windows boot environment designed primarily to bootstrap Windows Vista installation and prepare a disk for the new OS.

These tools are designed for enterprises, which typically need to roll out Windows Vista to large numbers of PCs in an automated way. Also it can be used to create custom Vista install images, one can burn them to blank DVDs using the third-party disk burning software, and then install the version of Windows Vista you want.