The ways to go about installing Windows were once quite limited. There has long also been a method of unattended installation, but new to the mix is the native ability to take advantage of imaging technology. We also have the enhanced RIS (Remote Installation Services) now named WDS (Windows Deployment Services). There is the old fashioned manual installation process too, but the key thing to realize when evaluating these options is that they are all driven by the same installation process. Its Image Based Setup (IBS) is employed no matter how the installation is performed (yes even from the DVD). Here I want to discuss some of the many benefits to this new installation methodology, because it is just really cool...

With Vista (and Windows Server 2008) instead of actually performing a setup, the IBS determines if it will be performing an upgrade or a clean installation and then "installs" Windows simply by decompressing the file based image to the hard drive, applying the appropriate parameters along the way.

One of the key benefits to the IBS is that it employs a single instance store (SIS) to fit the multiple editions of Vista on the same DVD. While all the editions are there, the SIS stores only one copy of each shared file which allows for the saving of space necessary to pull this off.

This SIS capability is possible largely because the image is file based. Traditional imaging products have always used a binary image which basically treated each partition or drive as one big file. With its file-based format, another great benefit is the ability to perform a non-destructive upgrade of a previous version of Vista. You still need the drive space necessary to decompress the file based image for processing, but you don't have to loose a thing in the process of upgrading or reinstalling Windows. Yet another benefit of the file based image is that you can generate an image on one system and then apply it to almost any other system. This has been a major drawback to imaging in the past primarily due to their being dependent on the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) of the computer that was used to generate it. With Vista, the only limitation is processor architecture (a 32-bit image cannot be installed on a 64-bit system)

I've covered how to do this before, but it is worth reiterating that it is also possible to mount and unmount images as folders which can be edited without actually having to install and recapture the image. This is very handy for the installation of drivers, patches, and other options. In fact, I'd be surprised not to see some third party tools enter the market which may take further advantage of this capability.