Hello @Dino-Vojic ,
I can help with your questions.
1.) why is image separated on another virtual machine? Image (we share) is on virtual machine "PLABDM01", located on G: drive? Wouldn't be more simple just to have it on server where we deploy WDS (VM called PLABDM02)?
PLABDM01 has the Windows 10 DVD, which contains the boot.wim and install.wim files. When you go through the steps to add an install image to WDS and add a boot image to WDS, you are copying the image files from PLABDM01 to PLABDM02. Once you have added the images, they are located on PLABDM02.
In small environments, images are stored on the WDS server. In large, distributed environments, images might be stored on distribution points. Imagine imaging a machine at a branch office. The machine might connect to the corporate office to talk to the WDS server and get the image information, but you wouldn't want to pull the image (potentially GBs of data) across the WAN. So you can have a distribution point (a storage location at the branch office) that holds the images.
2.) in first steps, we had to enable something called "Bindings", under IPv4, what exactly is purpose of that?
Bindings are when we link a protocol to a network adapter (allow the adapter to use a protocol). If a DHCP server has more than one network adapter, you might not want it to perform DHCP (listen for DHCP request packets) on all adapters. In the lab, PLABDM02 only has one adapter, and the DHCP protocol is already enabled on that adapter (it's already checked, you are just verifying this). If there were more than one adapter, they would all be listed, and you could check and uncheck them, depending on which networks you wanted the DHCP server to respond on.
3.) Why are we sharing images that are located on different VM?
You are sharing the image (from the DVD) on PLABDM01 so you can copy it to your WDS server (PLABDM02). You do this when you add the install image and the boot image.
4.) In one of the steps, it says that we need to "On the Remote Installation Folder Location page, modify the Path box, so it reads as: E:\RemoteInstall"....I am little bit confused about this. This "E volume" is this folder we create to put the image or are we accessing this volume?
E: is another volume (that already exists) on PLABDM02. You are setting the location on where you want WDS to store the images files. You do not want to store image files on C: for a couple of reasons. The main reason is disk contention. Adding images (writing to disk) and installing images (reading from disk) on clients are disk intensive processes. If you store images on the same drive as the running operating system of the WDS server, you will cause disk contention. Performance will be bad. The other reason for storing images on a separate volume is because images can be large. You do not want to run out of free space on the C: drive of the WDS server. Also note, the volume you store images on should be a separate physical disk. If you create a second volume on the same drive, you will protect from running out of free space, but not disk contention. Ideally, images are stored on a RAID set, or other high performance drive option.
5.) Since we have those 2 VM (PLABDM01 & 02) how exactly does the 2nd one reaches out to 1st VM to take Image/Boot files in WDS service?
PLABDM01 has the Windows 10 DVD. You share the DVD drive so PLABDM02 can access the files across the network. When you add an install image, you point to the UNC path of the shared files, and they are copied to PLABDM02. If you had access to the servers, you could have put the DVD in PLABDM02 and copied the files to the local hard drive, or used a USB drive.
6.) Do we need to add Image/Boot files separately or is 1 ISO Image enough?
You need both install images and boot images. You are not adding the entire ISO, just the install.wim and boot.wim files. You typically have several install images (each a separate install.wim file) You might have one for Windows 10 Enterprise, another for Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, and custom images that have applications already installed. You need a boot.wim file for x86 and a boot.wim file for x64, for each OS as well. A x86 machine cannot use a x64 boot.wim file, and a x64 machine cannot use a x86 boot.wim file. You don't need a boot.wim for each install.wim.
For example, if you use WDS for installing Windows 10, and you have several custom Windows 10 images, you would have several install.wim files (one for each custom image), but one boot.wim (because they are all Windows 10 x64)
7.) is it possible to have multiple OS's (macOS, Ubuntu, Win10) on same WDS so the user can choose his OS he wants during initial boot?
You can have several Microsoft operating systems, like Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 10 Pro, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, etc. Non-Microsoft operating systems are not supported.
Hope this answers your questions,
Mike Rodrick
Edutainer, ITProTV
**if the post above has answered the question, please mark the topic as solved.
