bootcamp deployment

[franton]

How is everyone doing their bootcamp deployment? I've been banned from using Casper Imaging to do it (!) so i'm wondering what people's methodology is out there.

In particular how are people overcoming the fact that Bootcamp Assistant requires an official Windows DVD before it will partition the disk. (Confirmed by the fact I just tried with a couple linux live cd's and it doesn't want to know).

[cbrewer]

I think WinClone and Casper Imaging via NetBoot is the easiest method. You can use Windows Deployment Services or SCCM, but it requires you to boot the Mac from a CD since you can't (to my knowledge) PXE boot a Mac. You can add a partition with Disk Utility.

[cbrewer]

Here's a good read if you're interested in using WDS or SCCM.

http://www.jgsys.co.uk/blog/deploying-windows-7-to-an-imac-using-sccm/

[tlarkin]

Hi Franton,

I have done several bootcamp work flows with imaging Windows on Macs. In fact, at a previous job I imaged 6,000 Macbooks with both OS X 10.4 (at the time Tiger was the current OS) and Windows XP Pro. Back then Winclone Pro did not even exist, so I was using open source tools and scripts (ntfs.progs, etc). Nowadays, with WinClone Pro it is pretty simple.

You need to purchase the Pro version of WInclone. Set up your Windows partition, install Windows, configure it, sysprep it, whatever you need done, then use Winclone Pro to create your image. The Pro version allows you to create it with the autodeploy tools (I could be using the wrong terminology here, but it is only included in the Pro version), which is essentially a set of Python/Perl scripts that automate the process of file copying your image to your Mac.

Then, once uploaded in Casper Admin, and all the proper meta data is set, you can create a configuration to install Windows. In your parent configuration under the partitions tab, you will need to check the button that says use this configuration in place of this partition. It will then block copy your OS X partition to your client, then file copy the Windows image to the partition schema you created for it.

Here is our documentation for reference: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/article.html?id=70

Do note that it does have to file copy, since you aren't laying it down at the time you erase the hard drive. So, if you have a large monolithic Windows image, it could increase imaging time. I have done this with several customer who needed to run Windows natively on a Mac. It does work.

Hope this helps,
Tom

[Kumarasinghe]

We use SCCM to image Windows without any SCCM boot CDs.

This is the workflow. You might need to do thorough testing and planning (identify partitions, pans which partition to put Windows...etc) prior to this.

1. Create task sequence to make a SCCM Prestage and make sure you have shutdown at the end
2. Create a small FAT32 partition on the Mac
3. Boot from SCCM boot CD and run the tasks sequence previously created to put the SCCM prestage media into the FAT32 partition (Task Sequence has to be properly configured to install the tasks on correct partition) and shut down
4. Capture the SCCM Prestage image using Winclone Pro and make it self-extracting one
5. Create PKG of the .winclone with a postflight script to extract it to a specific partition (e.g- disk identifier disk0s4) - using winclone.perl restore command http://twocanoes.com/support/winclone/deploying-a-bootcamp-partition-with-winclone-and-apple-remote-...
6. Create a policy with that PKG with a manual trigger
7. Image with a Casper workflow which makes a FAT32 partition (e.g. disk0s4) at imaging time and call that manual trigger from a PostImage script (runs at Reboot) to extract winclone image to it (e.g. disk0s4)

We couldn't image the .winclone image directly from Casper imaging as it will only give a blinking cursor error. That's why we had to follow steps 5, 6, 7 instead.

So we don't have to use CDs anymore to boot into SCCM .

[franton]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! To those who suggested the WinClone route, I have been specifically prohibited from doing exactly that for reasons that are still ... unclear ... to me. Ordinarily i'd have gone down that route like a shot, and I did even manage to make a universal bootcamp w7 image that would have worked on any mac in the last five years.

No, sadly I am forced to try and get some sort of system either via WDS or ZenImaging (which is what the PC's use) to work.

My biggest issue right now is that you now need Bootcamp Assistant to correctly partition a 3Tb iMac (i've a previous post on exactly what it does), and it refuses to work without (what it thinks) is a valid Windows install DVD/USB stick. The commands simply do not exist to do a non destructive repartition of a CoreStorage system in the way that Bootcamp Assistant does things ... that i've found.

(we did tell people not to buy the 3tb hd models. they bought them anyway and expect us to have it ready for monday.)

However there's food for thought here. Thanks for the suggestions!

[timsutton]

Thanks for sharing these SCCM workflows.

Possibly of interest for some: I recently put together a Mac/Windows script that can automatically fetch and/or install the correct set of Boot Camp drivers for a given Mac model, which could be especially helpful for any automated post-imaging tasks, ie. via sysprep. For Windows, a pre-compiled binary's also available. More info here:

https://github.com/timsutton/brigadier

[franton]

Have you had a look at the Bootcamp 5 drivers yet? They look suspiciously like a universal driver package.

It's worth also looking at a previous post I made a while back (before all the work I did got squashed) on a universal bootcamp image that integrates bootcamp drivers right into the image. The post was written in a hurry but should give you some good clues.
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=6567

[timsutton]

What suggests to you they look universal?

From the Download KB page for Bootcamp 5 (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1638):

System Requirements
MacBook Air (Mid 2011) or later
MacBook Pro (Mid 2010) or later
* MacBook Pro 13 inch-Mid 2010 is not supported
Mac Pro (Early 2009) or later
Mac mini (Mid 2011) or later
iMac (Mid 2010 or later)
Windows 7 x64, Windows 8. x64

From the SUS dist file for update ID 041-7018:

"var models = ['MacBookAir4,1','MacBookAir4,2','MacBookAir5,1','MacBookAir5,2','MacBookPro6,1','MacBookPro6,2','MacBookPro8,1','MacBookPro8,2','MacBookPro8,3','MacBookPro9,1','MacBookPro9,2','MacBookPro10,1','MacBookPro10,2','MacPro4,1','MacPro5,1','Macmini5,1','Macmini5,2','Macmini5,3','Macmini6,1','Macmini6,2','iMac11,3','iMac12,1','iMac12,2','iMac13,1','iMac13,2',];"

In (at least) the past couple years, there's been one ESD that contains about 80-90% of Mac models, with several "forked" updates targeting certain specific models (typically the latest generations). You can look at two driver packs side by side and they may look universal, but since many of the drivers are actually self-extracting archives, you'll only see the actual differences by comparing .INF files that will show you different version numbers and supported device IDs.

This doesn't take away from an approach like the one you linked, for cases like a lab where you may have only several models to support, and can install the drivers within your image because you know your target models. I prefer the idea of only installing (silently) the model-specific Boot Camp installer as-is, so as to remove any guesswork about what drivers it may or may not contain. It's already enough work to make other aspects of Windows deployment go smoothly!

[cbrewer]

There's already at least one new build of the BootCamp 5 drivers. The newest education iMac uses build 5040.

[franton]

Tim:

Basically I pulled apart the all of bootcamp drivers that apple has ever shipped. I found very minor differences in version numbers of the drivers, and apart from some packages having different sound drivers .. that was it.

I rigged up a deployment image that contained drivers from the iMac 13,2 bootcamp 4 driver set with some of the sound drivers from the iMac 7,1 (I think). This got me eventually a sysprepped image that worked on every mac I tested it on from 7,1 up to 13,2.

I noticed in Bootcamp 5 those missing drivers are supplied again. No need to pix n mix again. I'm not convinced that there's forks of the drivers for specific hardware because my testing suggests it'll install and work regardless.

[timsutton]

@cbrewer:

I noticed there was a new ESD update for the iMac13,3. Can you confirm whether this is the new "eMac" iMac?

@franton:

Perhaps similarly, I noticed new device ID support for the Broadcom network drivers in the ESD that targets specifically the 2012 Minis and iMacs, when I checked about a week before the version 5 driver set landed. And yes, it seems version 5 is largely a rollup package, but it will only be so until there's newer hardware available this year. FWIW, there are currently nine different Boot Camp ESDs available in Apple's .sucatalogs.

Perhaps this driver package covers what you're currently supporting, but I'd like to not have to worry whether a targeted Mac is recent enough. According to the list at http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1638, quite a number of older Macs aren't supported (nothing older than 2010 iMacs/Macbooks or 2011 Mac minis, for example).

[cbrewer]

Yes, the new education iMac is the 13,3 model.

[franton]

Tim: Don't forget that Apple periodically withdraw support for Bootcamp from their lineup after a certain amount of time. I believe the models you're referring to were at the point where they ditched XP support on newer computers.

Ths SUS dist file tells one story. If you manually decompress the driver .exe files with The Unarchiver, the readme files in there tell a different one.