Deploying Earlier Versions of Windows

You can use Windows Deployment Services to deploy Windows Vista as well as earlier Windows operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. To do this, you use Sysprep to prepare the operating system, and then use a capture image to save the image in the Windows image (.wim) file format. Note that Windows Deployment Services does not recognize that the image contains an earlier operating system until the image is selected on the image selection page. When the image is selected, the image's metadata specifies the exact version of the operating system.

Although Windows Deployment Services provides full functionality for applying images for Windows Vista, note the following limitations when deploying the images of earlier Windows operating systems:

• Sysprep must be applied to the first primary partition: Earlier operating system images that have been prepared with Sysprep must be applied to the first primary partition (for example, C:\). Applying these images to other partitions is not supported.
  
  
• The HAL must match: Earlier operating system images are hardware abstraction layer (HAL)-specific, meaning that they can be applied only to computers that have a matching HAL type. Therefore, Windows Deployment Services detects the local computer's HAL type and filters out images that are earlier than Windows Vista and that are not of that same HAL type. For example, if there are two images on the Windows Deployment Services server that the client has permissions to (one ACPI and the other APIC) and the client computer is ACPI, only the ACPI image will be available. This is true in both attended and unattended installation scenarios. Note that the HAL type of an image is stored in the .wim image metadata: <HAL>acpiapic</HAL>
  
  
• External language packs do not apply: When you are applying these images, the concept of external language packs does not apply. The language selection drop-down list on the image selection page will not let you select an additional language. Additionally, if you specify a language, locale, and keyboard layout in the Windows Deployment Services client user interface (or if you using an unattend file) the settings you specified will not be used in the image that gets applied. This is because Windows Deployment Services does not support modifications to offline images older than Windows Vista that would be necessary for this functionality.
  
  
• You cannot apply a driver to an offline image (by using the F6 key or load driver functionality) . The API set you use to perform offline driver injection is supported only for Windows Vista images.
  
  
• The Boot.ini file must exist in the image: Rather than Setup generating a Boot.ini file when deploying an operating system earlier than Windows Vista, Boot.ini must already exist in the image. This is currently the default behavior of most image-based deployments, including those involving ImageX.
  
  

  To ensure that the Boot.ini file is included with the image

  1. Deploy the image of the earlier operating system to a reference computer.

  2. Use Sysprep to prepare the image.

  3. Capture the image of reference computer, including the Boot.ini file.

  4. Deploy the image by using Windows Deployment Services. When the image is applied, the Boot.ini file included in that image will be copied as well.