Reformatting and Installing a Fresh Vista on a Toshiba M200

As many of you Tablet M200 owners know you can't really install a new OS on the M200 because it doesn't have support for a built-in optical drive.  While you can purchase an optoical drive from Toshiba (costly) or another USB optical drive, I just couldn't stomach doing it living in the age of .iso files and tools like Daemon Tools and MagicDisc.  So, I went the long way around which is to do a PXE boot using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) the next version of Remont Installation Services (RIS) in Windows Server 2003.  The WDS product is a part of the WAIK kit wihch availabe by invitaiton from connect.microsoft.com.  This product allows you to take the WDS component from Longhorn Server and place it into Windows Server 2003.  One thing to note is that RIS does not support the Vista Beta 2 media to create images.  So here is what I did.  Keep in mind that I did this using a Virtual Server 2005 domain with DHCP, DNS and a domain controller enabled with RIS installed on a server in the domain.

1.  Install Remote Installation Services on Windows Server 2003 using the Add Remove Windows Components Dialog int he Control Panel

2.  Install WDS and install the integration package so it runs on Windows Server 2003

3.  Create an image of Vista Ultimate and register with with WDS on the server following the configure WDS Wizard

4.  Network Boot the M200 (PXE boot).  It will automatically detect the WDS server, obtain a DHCP IP and then present a menu for image installation.

Then sit back and watch has the M200 is loaded from the WDS server.  No otpical drives, or other peripherals needed and I was able to wipe my M200 clean and do a fresh Vista install.