Let's take a look at some of the other options that we
have inside Windows Deployment Services.
If I right‑click on the server and go to Properties,
then I can change some of the defaults that were created during installation,
such as the PXE or PXE Response.
That's the pre‑execution environment when you boot up the computer.
And I chose to respond to all client computers,
known and unknown.
If you choose to change that to only‑known client
computers or not to respond to any, in case you're not ready to respond,
then you can certainly make that change here.
You can also change the PXE or PXE Response Delay.
If it shows 0 seconds,
it actually is going to take about a minute before it fails,
and then it will try to boot from one of the other devices in the boot order.
You could change this to a specific amount of time,
such as 15 seconds, or 30 seconds, whatever it is that you'd like.
You could change this to 15 seconds or 25 seconds, anything up to 28 seconds.
We can also go to Active Directory Domain Services,
and here we can see the computer account location.
So when we join this particular computer into the domain,
it's going to create a computer account in the same domain as
the Windows Deployment Services server.
You could change that to the same domain as the user performing the
installation in case they're a part of a different domain or the same
organizational unit or the following location.
So if you have another Active Directory Domain or forest,
then you can choose that here.
I'm going to leave it the same and click on Boot.
Here we have the option to require the user to press F12 to
continue for both known and unknown computers or just to
always continue on with the PXE boot.
You could change that to force them to press the F12
key or choose to continue the boot,
unless the user presses Esc or to never continue the PXE boot.
Then you have the option for putting in default boot images.
This is optional, as you see.
You can do this for other types of images other than just a
standard x86 architecture if you'd like.
When we go over to the Client, we can specify an unattended installation file,
so that way we'll automatically answer all the different things,
such as the computer name, whether or not the firewall's turned on,
and in any one of 100 different things that you can set up
using the Windows automated deployment kit that you can
install on one of the computers.
If you choose to not join the client computer to the domain,
then you can choose that as well.
It will just add the computer in, but not add it into the domain.
And in case you're having any trouble, you may want to enable logging,
which is not enabled by default, but I went ahead and checked.
This will log all the information, errors,
warnings, if you choose this particular option,
or you can choose a lesser version.
When we go into DHCP, this is an area where you want to check the boxes,
but only if a couple of things are going on.
One is if you're not using a Windows DHCP server,
then you can check one of those boxes.
Otherwise,
you can check both boxes if the DHCP server is on the Windows Deployment server,
which mine is not.
When going into Multicast, you can use the Obtain IP address from DHCP,
or you can use specific addresses.
When you choose a multicast option,
the deployment sends one network transmission to
multiple WDS clients all at once,
and this is going to reduce the network bandwidth.
This can be very useful if you're having many different clients all
connecting to the Windows Deployment Services server all at once.
When we go into Advanced under Domain Controller,
we can choose the option for allow Windows Deployment Services
to dynamically discover the valid domains.
If it doesn't work, then you can go in here,
and you can manually select them,
and you also have the option under DHCP Authorization to
either do not authorize this Windows Deployment Services
server in DHCP or to authorize it.
It's a good idea to set that to authorize.
Then under Network, we have Obtain dynamic ports from Winsock.
This is typically the best way to go.
But if you're using ports that are in the upper range,
you can manually set them here.
And lastly, we have TFTP,
and this is used to load and install the operating system.
So the TFTP is already a part of Windows Deployment Services.
If you understand block size,
you can go ahead and play with that and make some changes,
but typically you would leave that just the way it is,
as well as the variable‑window extension.
If you like the changes that you made, you can click Apply and OK, or just OK.
I'm going to go down here also to the Wind10 install
images group, I'm going to right‑click, and I want to show you Security.
Because, by default,
this Security is set up in a way that pretty much anyone can use it.
If that's not what you want,
then you can go in and change Authenticated Users to either not allow
or be denied to go ahead and access these images.
You can also add in specific groups or users and give
them control if you'd like as well.
What I recommend is that you keep your Windows
Deployment Services set up in its own subnet,
and that way, no one else is going to be able to connect to it,
and you won't have to worry about any type of security
issues and having to make any changes here.
I'm going to go down to where it says Drivers,
and we can see there are All Packages and a DriverGroup.
So if I right‑click on the DriverGroup1,
I can go to Properties, and we can see that the status is enabled,
and it's going to have driver packages matching client hardware.
This allows us to have specific drivers for hardware.
It's most commonly used with things that don't automatically come
with Windows Server or Windows 10 operating systems,
such as specific types of printers, RAID controllers,
things like that.
Here you can go ahead and add those in,
just click on Add and locate the driver packages,
and then you can install them,
and then you can add them into the package for the install images.
Here we have Active Directory Prestaged Devices.
I went ahead and ran my pre‑execution environment and added in a computer,
and it automatically added in a computer called administrator1. And it
did that because I was logged in as the administrator.
If you're logged in as another user, then you'll see that name instead.
And then my next computer I add in should be called administrator2.
Understanding additional features and changes to the installation
will allow you to customize how you want Windows Deployment Services to work in your environment.