HII Tools Quick Start

Submitted by CondorMan on Tue, 2007-11-13 12:00.

HII Tools version 3.2.0 makes it easier than ever to start deploying Hardware Independent Images with Deployment Server.

There are 3 simple steps to get started using HII Tools.
(Get all 3 here!)

1. Collect Target Analyzer (ta.exe and tap.exe)
2. Create jobs
3. Capture Drivers, Create HII, and Distribute HII

You can follow the steps in this document on the Deployment Server or on any workstation with the Deployment Console and .Net Framework 2.0 installed.

Step 1: Collect Target Analyzer (ta.exe and tap.exe)

This product from Microsoft analyzes a system to determine what devices are on the target system, as well as what HAL is required. It produces a file that is parsed by the HIITools utility called "DriverPrep" to collect appropriate drivers for the target system. There are actually 2 versions: TA which runs in DOS and TAP which will run under WinPE if your deployment uses that method. The following is one way to collect these files:

1. Download Windows XP Embedded SP2 Evaluation Edition.
2. Install Windows XP Embedded Tools. When you launch the file XPEFFI.EXE, you will be prompted with 4 installation options. Select only the first option as indicated (by default, all will be selected, and you should deselect the other 3)
   
   

   Click to view.

   If desired, change the Download Location, then click Start Download Now to begin the download.

3. When complete, after a couple more prompts, the installer for Windows XP Embedded will be launched. You should select only the Tools Setup as indicated:
   
   

   Click to view.

4. Follow the prompts as usual to install the tools. When prompted for a license file, you should open a file called "Productkey.txt" from C:/Program Files/Windows Embedded/Installer/DISK1 (unless a different install location was chosen). Manually enter the key shown there. A Typical Installation using all defaults is sufficient for this purpose.
5. Once this is complete, you will find the files TA.EXE and TAP.EXE in the following location: C:/Program Files/Windows Embedded/utilities. This will be different if you chose a different source location for the installation of course. Copy only these files to: <DS Install>/HII

Step 2: Create jobs to Capture Drivers, Create HII, and Distribute HII

Version 3.2.0 of HIITools introduces the HIIJobWizard which makes HII Job creation a breeze. From the Deployment Console, select Tools > HII Tools > HII Job Wizard. Choose the type of job you would like to create, and click Next. Then fill out all the information to customize the job to your needs and click Finish. Run through the wizard for each job you want to create.

Step 3: Capture Drivers, Create HII, and Distribute HII

At this time, all of the preparation is complete and it is time to actually perform the 3 imaging processes.

Capture Drivers:

The first step is to actually capture the drivers for the various hardware types you own. You will need to run this job on one of every model computer you intend on imaging. This step must be run on machines that are a member of the same domain as the DS, or an error will be generated. Each time it is run, drivers will be captured for each device and then sorted for later use.

Create (capture) a base Image:

Once you have collected the various drivers necessary, it's time to actually create an image by assigning the "Create Hardware Independent Image" job to a representative computer. More information on how to create your base image can be found in Best Practices.

For Windows XP and 2003 images, you will need to re-create the image every time you add (or collect) Mass Storage Drivers into your Driver Library in order to support the new drivers. Windows Vista does not have this limitation.

Distribute the Image:

Finally, you are prepared for deployment. All you have to do is configure computers to receive the "Distribute Hardware Independent Image" job. You may want to consider using things like Initial Deployment for this. More information on how to distribute images can be found in Best Practices.

Troubleshooting: Collect Drivers - Flow Diagram

HII Tools has made the process of collecting drivers as simple as possible with one tool (DriverCollect.exe) that runs in two modes: DriverCollect and DriverSort. The default is to use the job in DS to collect drivers from existing systems, but there is a manual method as well. The overall process looks like this:

Click to view.

 

1. Automatic Process using the Collect Drivers for Hardware Independent Imaging job.
   
   1. DriverCollect gathers drivers from the target system into a folder under Temp named the ID of the target system.
   2. DriverSort then move those drivers into their destination folders to be used later by DriverPrep.
2. If DriverCollect either does not work, or is not a viable option (i.e. new systems with no OS and/or no AClient), the drivers can be added manually.
   
   1. Download the drivers from vendor sites and extract them to "HII/<OS>/Manual Driver Sort".
      The driver files must be in the root of this directory, no subdirectories.
      Make sure the files you place in this directory are the driver files for the right OS.
   2. DriverSort.bat can then be run to automatically sort the drivers you downloaded into the appropriate folders for use by DriverPrep.

Troubleshooting: Distribute Drivers - Flow Diagram

During the Distribute Disk Image job, to make the image "hardware independent", we run a number of steps AFTER the image is deployed.

Click to view.

1. Target Analyzer (TA/TAP) is run to determine the hardware required. This creates the PMQ file.
2. DriverPrep is run against this PMQ file and pulls the necessary files you collected earlier from the folder structure to a temp folder under the computer ID.
3. FIRM is then used to copy all the necessary drivers to the newly installed image prior to running Windows for the first time.

Glossary of Terms and Products

HIITools - Hardware Independent Imaging Tools. This refers to all tools discussed in this guide.

Sysprep - Microsoft tool for reconfiguring a system for first-time use, or Preparing a System. It clears numerous registry values, prompts a run of the MiniSetup wizard (that is included in all MS OS's) and if given certain files, will auto-configure a system with certain settings including things like Timezone and others.

Sysprep.inf - Configuration file used with Sysprep.

DriverCollect.exe - Tool to collect device drivers from a representative system for later use on new systems. This tool simply collects all drivers from the system and sends them to the Deployment Server into a temporary location in the eXpress share/Temp/DriverCollect/%ID%/. The files only remain in this location long enough for DriverSort to run.

DriverSort.exe - Tool to sort collected device drivers into appropriate locations on the Deployment Server for use in Hardware Independent Imaging. It looks through all the drivers collected by DriverCollect and sorts them into folders based on their specific ID number. Any duplicates are discarded, but different versions of the same driver are kept.

System Restore - This is a function of many of the newer MS OS's to keep snapshots of the OS at certain stages of its progress. It is very useful to be able to roll-back to a previous state, but it takes up a lot of un-necessary disk-space when capturing images. You may want to disable this and delete the snapshots before capturing an image.

TA / TAP - Microsoft tools "Target Analyzer" that capture all the hardware devices and hardware information on a system. The tool creates a file that is sent to the DS in a temporary location which is then parsed by DriverPrep to collect the appropriate device driver files that will be sent down with Sysprep on a newly imaged system. TA is the DOS version, and TAP is the WinPE version of the tool.

DriverPrep - This tool sorts through the PMQ file that Target Analyzer created, and based on the hardware present, collects all necessary drivers and HAL files into a temp folder to be copied to the client system under /Sysprep/Drivers/<OS_Version>/Temp/%ID%.

HAL - Hardware Abstraction Layer. This is the set of files in an OS that "isolates" the hardware from the operating system. It is designed to make all hardware look the same to the core OS files so that changes in the OS do not have to directly understand the individual hardware types. Common portions of this include management of PCI, Drive types (i.e. SCSI vs IDE) and BIOS interaction. If the HAL installed is incorrect, the OS generally will not run.