Phase 2: Building Your Deployment Environment

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2

Note

This content applies to Windows 7. For Windows 8 content, see Windows Deployment with the Windows ADK.

This section describes how to build your deployment environment. A deployment environment contains a technician computer running Windows® System Image Manager (Windows SIM), and Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) media.

Windows SIM is the primary tool for creating customized installations. We highly recommend that, in addition to using your technician computer, you test your installations in a lab environment prior to deployment. For more information, see Windows System Image Manager Technical Reference.

Windows PE is a minimal operating system built to initialize Windows Setup. For more information, see Windows PE Technical Reference.

In This Section

Building a Technician Computer	Describes system requirements and installation instructions for the Windows OEM Preinstallation Kit (Windows OPK) and Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK).
Building a Lab Environment	Describes setting up a networked environment for developing and testing deployment.
Deployment Network Considerations	Describes best practices for setting up Windows for networks
Work with Windows PE	Describes procedures used to create and customize Windows PE for image deployment

See Also

Concepts

Phase 1: Planning Your Deployment
Phase 3: Preparing and Customizing Your Windows Image