Remote install of win2000 on USB LAN

[clarkgillet]

For a school project a group of my fellow students and I will be installing windows 2000 server on a remote PC via USB LAN connection.

If anyone has tried this or has any experience in this area, I would greatly appreciate some tips or hints that will point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance,
Clark

[AllGamer]

i've done it on normal 10/100 TCP/IP also via IPX

but never done it to a Ethernet NIC on a
USB

Why i don't think it's possible?

for 1 USB does not work in DOS.

2nd, the remote or which is in essence the Automated install of anytype of Win2k, NT or XP, requies the first portion to be done in DOS, before it can load the Windows portion.

and 3rd, for this to work, you'll need to be able to load the NIC drivers before you even get into the DOS screen.

so unless there's a way for you to get USB support for DOS, then you wont be able to start the setup process of Windows Remotely.

now i'm trying to think of a work around..... thinking... brb....

[Midknyte]

you can't really do anything with usb and dos, so i highly doubt RIS would work in this situation.

you need a real nic that supports pxeboot, so that you can boot up the computer, get the dhcp information, then start the RIS install. if you don't have pxeboot type nics, you can run rbfg.exe to create boot floppies, but there are only a handful of supported cards, and i didn't see any usb adapters on the list.

[Midknyte]

Geez. AG always beats me to the punch. :(

At least we both agree, though.

[clarkgillet]

sorry I should have clerified. the client PC we will be installing on will have win98 on it previous to the install. so we will be updating the OS. You are correct though, the only way to do it on a formatted PC is through DOS. But because we are using a USB LAN we'll have to have an OS that supports USB already installed. Also, our instructor doesn't want us focusing on the networking portion of the project. That's the only reason why our group is using USB LAN instead of the more complicated NIC LAN.

[Midknyte]

um ok. if you already have the network setup, then i would copy the i386 folder over the network to your target system. run winnt32. it should tell you the rest from there.

[AllGamer]

I DO HAVE A WORKAROUND
even for USB

but i'm eating right now, yes in front of the pc, and reading and typing

so just let me finish, and I'll brb :D

[AllGamer]

ok i'm back...

so yes my plan is similar to what Midknyte has alredy described.
and you are right, you'll need at least a working OS with USB support, and win98 will do just fine.

as for how the process can work, simple
IF you know SCRIPTING with VBS, or know how to make a batch file work in Windows.

you'll need to preconfigure the Wn2k server setup as you want, 100% possible
MS Technet has good articles on how to.

once you have taken care of that reasearch and have preconfigure your setup.wis, or whatever you plan to use.

then now you'll need to make a script or batch file you can execute remotely.

and what you want it for is to reboot win98 so that autoexec can take over and run your batch file, which will infact run the winnt setup with your configure settings

for this to work you'll need at least i386 on another partition.

make sure that remote computer has 2 partition or 2 hdd.

now say everything went the way you planned

execute batch in 98 so it'll copy all the stuff you want from somehwere else, and has rebooted, and execute autoexec.bat to execute customized winnt setup for the server, and has gone through the preconfigure partition, formatting, copying, detecting, rebooting, more detecting, more copying, registry preparation, and finally going into windows.

now make sure that during all that, you have also specified in your install settings, the optional batch file you want it to run after it has gone into windows.

so it can load the USB drivers and stuff, needed for that nic, so you can then remotely manage everything via Terminal Sessions

if you can modiffy the install settings enough to include the USB NIC drivers during the install, then you can skip that last thing about executing the batch after the full setup, to install the nic drivers for usb.

[clarkgillet]

thanks for the help gang.

other than some unrelated hardware problems I think we're on the road to success

any other tips or suggestions are greatly appreciated.