Boot Windows XP via Lan?

Tranquil · Post by **Tranquil** » Sun Jan 18, 2004 2:50 pm

Hello at all!

At first a happy new year, as this is my first post in 2004.

One question: I've "build" a windows media center PC in a 19" case using a via epia M 10000 Mainbaord which supports LAN-Boot.
Now I would like to know if there is a possibillity to boot Windows via a Networkserver so that it is no more need to include a Harddrive to the case. With linux, I know, that is possible but what about windows?

Is there a "server like" software which is able to create and host more then one Windows on one server for booting over a network device?

Thanks in advance!

Yours
Mike

Dreglor · Post by **Dreglor** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:19 am

well frist you have to have "boot on lan" or "wake on lan" set to enabled in bois
proably the only thing you need to do is to ping the system to turn it on...
personlly i never used this feature so i wouldn't know...

Tranquil · Post by **Tranquil** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 2:25 pm

Dreglor wrote:well frist you have to have "boot on lan" or "wake on lan" set to enabled in bois
proably the only thing you need to do is to ping the system to turn it on...
personlly i never used this feature so i wouldn't know...

Hi Dreglor!

Thanks for your replay. But that is not that think I want to do. Possible I described it the wrong way. I will try again:

I want to build a PC without a harddrive which boots up only over a networkdevice and, lets say, a "windows server" which is hosting different windows machines. I can not find anything in the web couse I dont know the "search keywords" for this topic in google.

Mike

Post by **Rings** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:07 pm

hi mike, i have seen a LAN-Interface which acts on the PC-side as IDE-Drive and has on the other side a LAN-connection to a \\networkdrive\ .
don't remember where i have seen it but it was for industrial use (and not cheap). But i remember that i have a USB-Harddisk with a Samsung 120GB SP1203N UDMA133 7200U/min. Silent for 89.- Euros . This harddisk is very very silent.

blueznl · Post by **blueznl** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:42 pm

not possible with regular xp afaik

however, you could try to obtain an embedded version (lots smaller) and put it on a dom (disk on module)

or simply use a normal harddrive, add a ramdrive, point everything towards the ramdrive (or a network drive AFTER booting up), and enable power saving on the hardrive, so that after booting things quiet down

you'll have to tweak xp a little to do this properly... xp wants to do a lot 'on disk' during and after boot... disable all unnecessary processes / services, use a ramdrive that kicks in during boot BEFORE user data is loaded, use cacheman or something similar to control memory management and (un)loading of dll's, disable virtual memory...

but booting xp from a network drive... nope, not afaik