How to Use DeployAnywhere for hardware independent imaging

Products

• Ghost Solution Suite

Issue/Introduction

How to use Deployanywhere for Hardware Independent Imaging

Environment

GSS 3.3

Resolution

The DeployAnywhere feature lets you re-target an image to suit a computer that has different hardware from the model of computer from which the image was created. This allows you deploy a generic image to a range of different computers and perform a re-targeting of the computers, rather than requiring a separate image for each hardware set.

DeployAnywhere DOES Support deploying an image between different Hardware Abstraction Layers (HAL). The DeployAnywhere feature will sort out which HAL a computer requires and will load it. It will then find and install at minimum the critical correct mass storage driver(s) and the NIC driver. 

Note: DeployAnywhere will not cross processor levels, such as replacing the HAL from a single (Uni) processor to a Multi processor machine.  The solution is to go from a Multi processor machine to another Multi processor machine.

DeployAnywhere looks for the required drivers from the deployed operating system (OS) and from the driver database. The driver Library is installed on the console computer at <install drv>:\Program Files (x86)\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\DriversDB folder. Additional drivers can be added using the 'DeployAnywhere Driver Database Management' tool

How to add drivers to DeployAnywhere at: How to use Deploy Anywhere from a deployment task in GSS 3.X 

DeployAnywhere supports both the Sysprep and the Non-Sysprep images. If a driver is not defined in the Sysprep image, DeployAnywhere will add and install it.

DeployAnywhere will use a step that results in a "Sysprep mini-setup" process at the destination computer before it starts up into Windows. If there are third-party drivers that are required they are injected and the Sysprep process installs them. 

To use DeployAnywhere in the Job follow these steps:

1) Toggle on Use DeployAnywhere hardware independent image

2) click on 'Advanced' button

3) Under DeployAnywhere Options (Default) use : /target=%ACTIVE_PARTITION%\windows /ddb=%ALTIRIS_SHARE%\driversdb /handleNonCriticalDrivers=minisetup /byPassDrvVali=All /notUseLegacyDriverInstaller /logpath=DALogs /logprefix=%ID%

Here is a document on command line options for DeployAnywhere: Switches Used with DeployAnywhere

There are some limitations on using DeployAnywhere. If you deploy an image to multiple computers, DeployAnywhere does not generate a unique computer name for each computer. The user will need to include a configuration step in a Console Task to ensure that a unique computer name is applied. A Configuration Task should also be used to join either a Domain or a Workstation. To create a Configuration Task, see the below document:

"How to create a Configuration Task."
Modifying Configuration