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Install Windows XP on Dell Optiplex 755 / 760 / 960 without AHCI SATA Driver

Wayne Zimmerman — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:51:04 +0000

Since it looks like Windows XP will still be hanging around for at least a few more months, I thought I should share one of the cool tricks that I have found when installing it to theses newer Dell computers that have difference mode SATA controllers. Coming from the factory most PCs will come with Vista on it and be have the SATA controller in AHCI mode. Vista has drivers to use the controller in this mode, however Windows XP doesn’t. And since most computers don’t ship with a floppy and won’t recognize a flash driver when installing XP your only option is to slipstream the driver on to the Windows XP CD to make it boot the PC. Well with these newer Dells you have the option to go in to the BIOS and change in what mode the SATA controller operates. You should see options for ATA mode / AHCI mode and RAID mode. By selecting the ATA mode you can use the drivers already supplied by default on the Windows XP CD, once you get it installed you can use the Windows Device Manager to update the drivers to the AHCI ones. Below are the detailed instructions on how to install the AHCI driver once you have Windows installed by changing the SATA controller to ATA mode.

Download the correct AHCI driver from support.dell.com website. The driver should be called “Intel Matrix Storage Manager (OS Pre-Install Driver Only)” or something close to that
Restart the PC and press F8 repeatedly to boot the computer to Safe Mode
Open up the device manager and locate the current SATA controller (Intel(r) ICH10 Family 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller) it will probably show 2 of them
Right click on the first one and select Update Driver
When the wizard pops up select No, not this time > Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) > Don’t Search. I will choose the driver > Have Disk button
Browse to the Drivers you downloaded and select the file named iaStor.inf, now uncheck the Show compatible hardware
You should now be presented with a list of drivers, this is where trial and error comes in. You will need to select the correct driver for your chipset. Here is a list of what I have for the AHCI driver for each model.
   Dell Optiplex 960 – Intel(r) ICH10D/D0 SATA AHCI Controller
   Dell Optiplex 760 – Intel(r)ICH10D/D0 SATA AHCI Controller
   Dell Optiplex 755 – Intel(r) ICH8R/DO/DH SATA RAID Controller [This is using RAID 1]
   Dell Optiplex 755 – Intel(r) ICH9 SATA Controller [Non RAID Install]
Now apply the driver to the second SATA controller
Restart the computer, now enter the BIOS and change the SATA controller to AHCI mode
Let it boot into Windows normally, If it crashes or fails to boot to Windows upon restart, boot back to BIOS change it back to ATA mode, then press F8 to get the windows boot menu and select Last Known Good Configuration. This should get you back in to Windows normally. Now restart the process at step 2, this time trying a different driver at step 6 and 7
Done

How to Slipstream Drivers into a Windows Installation using nLite

Wayne Zimmerman — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:11:47 +0000

Slipstreaming drivers in to your Windows installation can either make your Windows install super simple or just make it possible. Most modern SATA and RAID controllers need specific drivers for Windows to see and use the hard drive, and with most newer computers not having a floppy drive and most unable to use a USB attached one this leaves you to only option to add the correct driver to the CD using this slipstream technique. Besides adding hard drive controller drivers so you can install windows you can also add whatever other drivers you would typically install in Windows and put them in the install. Today I will be walking you though adding a RAID card driver to a Microsoft Windows 2003 Standard Edition installation.

Requirements

Microsoft Windows OS CD (2000,XP,2003 / Any Flavor)
nLite 1.4.9.1
RAID or SATA Driver needing to be added to your Windows Installation
Knowledge and Software to Burn an ISO image

Directions
Get the nLite software installed and fire it up, the software is pretty much a glorified wizard, but I will still take you step by step though it.

Select your language, I would suggest English in your case and press Next
Click Browse and use the Browse for Folders dialog box, now Select your CD-ROM drive that contains your Microsoft Windows CD, then click Next
Since you selected the CD in the first option, it should now Warn you and prompt you as to a Folder it can use to copy the files off the Windows CD and customize them in. I just made a folder in my Misc folder for this version of Windows
Now you should see a progress bar box, it is coping the files from the CD to the directory you selected so they can be customized. Once finished it should identify your OS, now press Next
This screen would allow you to import a previous set of nLite settings if you had used it before, however we haven’t so just Next though this window
Now you can see all the different areas that nLite can customize to make your installation go easier, however we are only interested in adding some drivers so we can actually install Windows so select Drivers and Bootable CD because we want to be able to boot to the CD and maybe burn it at a later date, then press Next
You will now be presented with the Drivers screen which will allow you to add drivers to your installation. To add a driver click on the Insert button. It should give you a small menu asking you to Select Single Driver or a Multiple Driver folder, for our use we just need to add the one Single Driver so select that.
It should prompt you to select the INF needed for the install, browse to where your driver is and select it.
Now it should identify what the driver is actually for and it asks you to select a mode. Regular PNP Driver should be used with devices that will be installed during the installation (network, video, sound), Textmode Drivers are loaded before the Windows installation starts, it is the equivalent of pressing F6 during the install and pointing to a floppy disk for the driver. This is mostly used for hard drive controllers, because Windows needs to know how to use the hard drive before it can install anything to it. Once you have selected the correct mode press OK
If you need to add more drivers just repeat the last three steps of the process, we only need the one driver to see our new RAID controller so we will press Next and move on.
Since this was the only part of Installation we were customizing it now asks if we want to start the process of applying the changes, go ahead and press Yes. It will next present you with a quick little status screen about it integrating the drivers and provide you with a little summary. Once it has completed press Next
Now it will provide you with a screen to Burn to a CD or Create an image, for this example we will create an image, this way I don’t have to repeat this process next time I want this driver on this CD. Go ahead and customize the label, this can help you remember what you added to this customized Windows installation, just leave the rest to default and click Make ISO, it will then prompt you as to where to save the CD/ISO image, once you have found a good location (I typically have a CD Images folder on my C: drive) then press Save
You should now be presented a progress bar box of it saving the ISO file to your Hard Drive. Once finished it should show you that it was created successfully. now you can press Next and Finish to close the nLite program.
The last step is a bit more independent of your setup, but run your favorite CD burning program and select Burn Image and direct it to the ISO image you just saved. This will create a bootable customized Windows CD that you can use to install your system

How to Deploy VNC using Group Policy

Wayne Zimmerman — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:36:32 +0000

Do you spend too much time running from desk to desk just to help someone make a shortcut or change the default printer? This could be the solution for you. Using UltraVNC you can remotely view and control their workstation from your desk. This can save you time from running around everywhere, and make your users happier faster by solving their problems on the spot. You can also make your boss happy be making it authenticate with Active Directory. That will ensure that everyone that has the remote support access uses their own username and password, and it is easily managed with Active Directory Groups. VNC works very simply by installing a server on every workstation which allows it to share out the desktop to other clients / viewer programs. By installing the VNC Server on all your workstations it will allow you to connect using the client / viewer application and provide hands on support directly from your workstation.

Requirements

Making the MSI using VNCed
Now that you have the required software, the first thing we need to do is uncompress the VNCed UltraVNC MSI Creator to a folder on your desktop. Once completed, run the run.bat and it should popup a GUI interface you can use to configure different parts of the UltraVNC Server.
Using this interface you can adjust and explore what options you have to choose from to customize your UltraVNC Deployment for your environment. The defaults here are a pretty good start and you can click on each item to get a description of what it will change. You may want to install this to a test computer a few times before rolling it out.
At this time you also need to configure if you will be using if you will be using Active Directory Authentication or just a plain password.

– To setup the plain password just fill out the password item and leave the newMSLogon unchecked.
– To setup Active Directory Authentication check the newMSLogon and you will need to make a file to select for aclImportFile. This file can either be generated based on the UltraVNC Instructions or you can use my file by creating a text file called: MSACL.ini and pasting allow 0x00000003 "..\Domain Admins in to it. That will allow anyone in the Domain Admins group to have full access to any machine setup using this MSI.

Once you have finished configuring the options for UltraVNC hit the Generate UltraVNC MSI button at the bottom. This will generate your UltraVNC.msi in the folder in which VNCed was extracted to. This file is what you will use to deploy UltraVNC to your workstations.

Using Group Policy to Deploy the MSI
First you will need to open either your Group Policy Management Console (gpmc.msc) and either modify your existing Workstation Group Policy or make a new one just for the deployment of this application depending on how you want to deploy it. By making a different GP to install, it can allow you deploy it just to a few machines, and only change the settings on those machines, where as the workstation method installs it to all workstations. This really up to the requirements of your environment. Either way you will need to look under Group Policy Object for your domain and create one or right click on one and edit it.
Now use the Tree on the Left to browse to Computer Configuration > Software Settings > Software Installation and right click on Software Installation and select New > Package… It will now prompt you with an open dialog box, go and select the MSI that we created earlier. If all goes well you should end up with something like the screenshot shows to the left. If all goes well now the only thing you have to do is link it to the OUs that you want it to effect if you created a new one , or you let your workstation group policy deploy to all the workstations the next time they restart.

Firewall Configuration
If you run a firewall on your machine you will need to allow port 5900 open. If you only running the default Windows Firewall you can configure this using the same group policy that you deployed UltraVNC with. Just go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Network Connections > Windows Firewall > Domain Profile then select Windows Firewall: Define port exceptions select Enabled then click the Show… button and click Add and fill out the items to specification.

For any other questions you have feel free to leave a comment I will be happy to assist you with the deployment.

For any other detailed information about UltraVNC you should check out their website at http://www.uvnc.com