Acronis Snap Deploy 4 - User Guide - Manual (Page 11)

11 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2012
1.2.8 Command-line mode and scripting under WinPE
Acronis Snap Deploy 4 provides a command-line utility that can be added to a bootable media based
on Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE). The administrator can create such media on a
physical drive or place it to the PXE server.
Having booted a machine into Windows Preinstallation Environment, the administrator can perform
imaging or deployment in the command-line mode or execute scripts.
Scenarios
Scenario 1
The administrator needs to deploy a different image to each machine on the network.
The administrator writes a deployment script that can read the target machine’s MAC address
(for example, 01-02-03-04-05-06) and pull an image whose name matches the MAC address (for
example, image-01-02-03-04-05-06.tib) The image can be located in any convenient location,
such as a network share.
The administrator then runs the script on any number of target machines to deploy the
corresponding image to each of them.
Scenario 2
The administrator needs to start imaging or deployment automatically each time a machine
boots from the PXE server.
The administrator creates an imaging or deployment script, adds the script to the PE and includes
the script in the startnet.cmd file. On booting into the PE, the operation will be performed
automatically.
Scenario 3
The administrator needs to automatically execute pre-deployment operations (disk partitioning,
for example) on the machines on the network.
The administrator creates a script that performs pre-deployment operations, adds the script
along with deployment script to the PE and includes both scripts in the startnet.cmd file. On
booting into the PE, both operations will be performed automatically.
1.3 Features of Acronis Snap Deploy 4
1.3.1 New: Support for UEFI
Acronis Snap Deploy 4 supports imaging and deployment for machines based on the UEFI
architecture as well as BIOS machines. See Deploying BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and vice
versa (p. 120) for details of deploying BIOS-based machines to UEFI and vice versa.
Limitation: Deployment of Linux GPT disks on UEFI machines is not supported.
1.3.2 New: Support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
Acronis Snap Deploy 4 supports Windows 8 (all editions except for RT edition) and Windows Server
2012 operating systems. You can install Acronis Snap Deploy 4 on Windows 8 and Windows 2012,
create and deploy master images of Windows 8 and Windows 2012 operating systems.