After the Windows Deployment Services role is installed, you must initialize the server itself. In the WDS Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in, select Configure Server from the server’s right-click context menu. In the configuration wizard, set up the mode for the server—Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) enabled or standalone—as well as how (and whether) to respond to client requests.
If the server is configured with both Deployment Server and Transport Server roles, you can add images to it as the final step in the configuration wizard. If you choose to do so, the Add Image Wizard launches, and you can then select the location where installation media (typically a DVD) can be found.
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NOTE: ROLE INSTALLATION
You can configure the Deployment and Transport roles only at the time of role installation. You can’t reconfigure the image store location or the type of server (Standalone or Active Directory Integrated) after the server is configured.
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Most settings in WDS can be reconfigured at any time from within its Properties sheet, which you open by right-clicking the server and selecting Properties from within the Windows Deployment Services MMC snap-in.
Configuring multiple servers to work in tandem involves ensuring that their settings match between servers. For example, the PXE Response Policy, found in the PXE Response tab (see Figure 1-11), sets how WDS responds to PXE requests. If you’re deploying multiple servers to be replicas of each other, the settings found in these tabs should match.
FIGURE 1-11 The PXE Response policy determines how WDS reacts when a PXE request is received.
- Do Not Respond to Any Client Computers Using this setting essentially disables PXE responses from this WDS server.
- Respond Only to Known Client Computers This WDS server responds to prestaged computers. Any unknown client trying to contact the deployment server is placed into the Pending Devices node inside WDS, as shown in Figure 1-12.
FIGURE 1-12 A pending device in the WDS console.
- Respond to All Client Computers The WDS server provides a response to all computers. Notice the check box to enable administrator approval in Figure 1-11.
Figure 1-13 shows the Client tab, which enables you to specify some of the same settings as you could from within the prestaging wizard, such as the location of the unattended file and whether the client will join the domain.
FIGURE 1-13 The Client tab in the WDS server Properties sheet.
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Note:
Click through the Properties sheet tabs within WDS to learn the location of the various options available for deployment configuration.
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New for Windows Server 2012 is the ability for WDS to operate as a standalone server, meaning it’s not integrated with AD DS. When a server is configured in this Standalone mode, the AD DS tab, among other properties, isn’t configurable within the server Properties sheet, as shown in Figure 1-14.
FIGURE 1-14 When a server operates in Standalone mode, some configuration items aren’t available.
