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I work at my university's tech support center, and we frequently have customers who need their Windows OS's reinstalled. We use USB drives, DVDs, and CDs that contain the installation .iso file, since we can boot to them.

My question is, is there a way for us to install Windows from a centralized server? That is, could we boot to the NIC on the customers' computers and install Windows from there? The closest thing I have found is using SERVA to do this, and while it works, the software is very picky because SERVA needs to have the client computer's NIC driver in order to work. Since we see hundreds of customers a day, we cannot guarantee to be able to load all drivers, and therefore we can't help everyone.

yiwei
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    "Using PXE Boot Technologies to Install Windows": https://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/magazine/2008.07.desktopfiles.aspx – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Jan 21 '15 at 22:31
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Deployment_Services – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Jan 21 '15 at 22:32
  • I was just about to suggest PXE boot. – Vinayak Jan 21 '15 at 22:33
  • Also see: [Install OS over network](http://superuser.com/questions/810314/install-os-over-network) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Jan 21 '15 at 22:35
  • Serva is not the "picky" one; the Windows OS being PXE installed is the one that mandatory needs the Client's NIC driver; No matter which Serva alternative you plan to use, you will always be back to the NIC driver requirement. Adding a missing NIC driver to a Serva offered Windows asset usually takes copying 3 files and re-starting Serva. – Pat Jan 29 '15 at 15:04

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