Updated: July 13, 2020 (August 4, 2003)
Charts & IllustrationsHow RIS Works
Administrators can use Remote Installation Services (RIS) to install Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 on a new computer. Prior to the installation, the administrator has installed RIS, used the RIS Preparation (RIPrep) tool to create a master image, and placed information about the computer in Active Directory (AD). The installation of a computer using RIS involves the following steps:
(1) The user turns on a bare-metal computer (a computer without an OS) that supports the Pre-execution Environment (PXE). PXE sends a Distributed Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) discover packet and a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) that is heard by a DHCP and a RIS server.
(2) The DHCP server responds with a valid IP address.
(3) The RIS server uses the Boot Information Negotiation Layer (BINL) to contact AD. AD provides information about the image for this computer and indicates whether a specific RIS server should handle the request (for load balancing).
(4) The RIS server uses the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) to download a network boot program (startrom.com) and then launches it.
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