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Mount the Installation Media

The Windows installation media needs to be mounted as a drive on the compute node.  The method to do this varies widely based on the provisioning engine being used and resources available.  The following lists some ways to mount the installation media:

VMware

Note: these instructions assume a VM has already been created

  1. Copy the Windows installation ISO file to the VMware host server
  2. Add a CD-ROM drive which mounts the Windows installation ISO image by editing the virtual machine settings:
    1. Connection: Use ISO image:
    2. Browse to path of Windows installation ISO image
    3. Save the VM configuration

xCAT using IBM Advanced Management Module

  1. Copy the Windows installation ISO file to the management node
  2. Determine the IP address or hostname of the IBM Advanced Management Module (AMM) for the BladeCenter chassis which contains the blade you are installing
  3. Open a web browser on the management node
  4. Navigate to the AMM's address
  5. Log in to the AMM
  6. Select Inactive session timeout value: no timeout
  7. Click Start New Session
  8. Click Remote Control
  9. Click Start Remote Control
  10. Set the Media Tray and KVM dropdown menus to the blade you are installing
  11. Click Select Image and click the arrow button to the right of it
  12. Navigate to the Windows installation ISO file which was saved to the management node and click Open
  13. Click Mount All

Install Windows

  1. Prepare the computer to boot to the Windows installation CD
  2. Power on the computer
  3. Press the key to display the boot menu as soon as the computer's POST screen is displayed (usually F12 for bare metal or ESC for VMware) 
  4. Boot from the CD-ROM drive
  5. Press a key to boot from the CD (this may be displayed at bottom of screen as soon as the computer begins to boot)
  6. Proceed to answer the Windows XP installation questions:
    1. Press Enter to setup up Windows XP now 
    2. Press F8 to agree to the license agreement 
    3. Configure the Windows partition 
      1. Press Enter to set up Windows XP on the selected item (should be called "Unpartitioned space")
      2. Format the partition using the NTFS file system (Quick)
    4. Region and Language Options - click Next
    5. Name: VCL
      Organization: Apache.org
    6. Enter your Windows XP product key 
    7. Computer name: vcl-winxp
      Administrator password: choose a password
    8. Select the timezone
    9. Networking settings: Typical
    10. Member of a domain: No, leave default workgroup settings
    11. Automatic updates: Not right now
    12. Connect to Internet: Skip
    13. Register: no
    14. Enter "root" as the user name (this generates the local root account and automatically adds root to the Administrators group)

Set root Password

The root account created during installation should automatically log on after installation is complete.  Set the root account password by executing the following command from a command prompt (the Windows user management GUI can also be used):

net user root <PASSWORD>

Install Drivers

  1. Open up the Device Manager:
  2. Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager
    1. If any devices are unknown or missing drivers, you will need to locate and download the appropriate driver and install it
    2. Save a copy of missing drivers in the appropriate drivers directory on the management node:
      Note: save the driver in the most general Windows drivers directory possible:
      1. If a driver only works under XP, save it under Windows_XP/Drivers:
        /usr/local/vcl/tools/Windows/Drivers
      2. If it also works for Server 2003, save it under Windows_Version_5/Drivers:
        /usr/local/vcl/tools/Windows_Version_5/Drivers
      3. If it works for all versions of Windows, save it under Windows/Drivers:
        /usr/local/vcl/tools/Windows/Windows_XP/Drivers
      4. There are other directories for other versions of Windows

Verify Network Connectivity

The compute node must be able to connect to the public and private networks. 

  1. If DHCP is not being used, configure the IP addresses manually
  2. Verify that the computer has IP addresses for both the public and private network adapters:
    1. Open a command prompt
    2. Run ipconfig /all
  3. Verify Internet access by opening Internet Explorer and browsing to a public website

Install Windows Updates

  1. Open Internet Explorer
  2. Run Windows Update
  3. Install all recommended updates, reboot if necessary
  4. Run Windows Update again to check for additional updates
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