OSD Requirements and OS Architecture Question

Usage and Config OSD
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You are correct, you cannot directly upgrade from 32-bit Windows 7 to 64-bit Windows 10. This limitation is based on the Microsoft setup; even attempting to upgrade using media and click-through setup would not accomplish a 32-to-64 migration.

It is possible with OSD to reimage the system remotely. There are several moving parts to it, so be sure to test before you do any mass-migrations.

The installation guide is invaluable, but the basic flow is

  • Install Bare Metal Server from the OSD Dashboard
  • Configure a DHCP server to send PXE clients to the Bare Metal Server
  • Create a Bare Metal OS image and import it into the Bare Metal Server. Either capture a preconfigured machine, or import the installation media. Create a Deployment Profile for the image, including host naming rules, domain to join, domain join credentials, etc.
  • Boot the client into PXE. Either have someone at the keyboard press F12 during startup, or use the task “Force network boot” from the OSD site targetting the BES client.
  • When the system boots, it will check in to the Bare Metal Server and register a new Bare Metal Target. This appears in the BES Console as a computer account, with an Agent Type of ‘Proxy - Bare Metal Extender’. It will likely be named for its IP address.
  • From the BES Console, there is a task in the OSD site to deploy your system profile to bare metal targets. The Description tab has menu entries to select the Image/Profile to deploy. You would action this against the Bare Metal Target for this machine.

Depending on the model of machine you are deploying, you may also need to use the Driver Library dashboard to import additional drivers. You may need to target these to your model of hardware and the image you are deploying, and may also need to target the drivers to your Win10 PE environment. (I’m assuming you already have a Win10 PE environment setup, I think those are used in the OS Reimage content as well as the Bare Metal content).

You should be prepared to spend some time getting this all set up and working properly, there are several moving parts both within and outside of BigFix that need to coordinate. But once you get it set up, it’s a very powerful capability to have. In my environment we regularly reimage our clients and it is very nice not to have to visit them.

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