Windows Deployment, Part 9: Deploying a vanilla build of Windows 8.1

 

We are now going to complete our WDS setup by deploying a vanilla build of Windows 8.1.

I’ll cover capturing and deploying your Gold Master Image in a later post.

First, boot a computer with PXE. In this example, we are using a VM.

 

Boot the VM.

Press ENTER for network service boot (This would be F12 on a legacy machine).

If you’ve chosen the .ini option to allow you to enter a computer name, here’s what you would see:

Review and select begin

Wait for 15 – 20 minutes (depending on your hardware spec) …

This will eventually appear, and stay on screen for quite a while. Don’t panic.

Once the install has completed, you’ll be given a summary of how the installation went.

We’re not using USMT or anything fancy here so the feedback will be minimal.

There you have it, as you can see from this demo, we have, in as little as two button presses:

• Installed Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64
• Activated Windows 8.1
• Selected UK region for all language options
• Joined the domain (thus applying all relevant group policies)
• All completed with a fancy corporate installer!

in a future article i will show you how to capture your gold master image!