PXE Boot Server without DHCP, for many different computers

dhcpmulti-bootpxe

I work at a helpdesk for a university where it is very common for us to reformat people's computers using XP, Vista, and Win7 CD's and DVD's. Of course, the discs get scratched and lost a lot.

It is feasible to have a server which the many different laptops can PXE boot to, to boot up images of these different OSes? Would you imagine that drivers would be an issue? Also, we have a router which provides DHCP services. Could such a PXE boot server be assigned a static IP from the router, and other clients still be able to connect to the PXE server?

Any thoughts would be appreciated, we are just brainstorming at this point.

Best Answer

If you are just installing Windows, I cannot see what the complication would be when using Windows Deployment Services on Windows Server 2003/2008/R2 on a domain. The domain controller will provide the DHCP service. It's a lot easier than messing around with TFTP and ethernet crossover cables.

The only problem I can think of, is that some older cheap laptops may not be able to boot from network.

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