Install Windows Deployment Services on Windows Server 2022

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) facilitates the deployment of Windows operating systems over the network. Thereby, eliminating the need to install each operating system directly from a USB, or DVD. This network-based installation of Windows operating systems reduces complexity and cost compared to manual installations. In this article, we shall discuss “Install Windows Deployment Services on Windows Server 2022”. Please see Windows Deployment Services: How to setup and install WDS role, and learn the differences between MDT and WDS.

If you would like to have an end-to-end article on how to deploy images in your environment using WDS, MDT, please see “ADK|WinPE|MDT: Deploy Windows with WDS“. Also, see “uninstall and upgrade ADK or WinPE and MDT“.

Install Windows Deployment Services Role

To install Windows Deployment Services Role, launch the Server Manager and select “Add Roles and Features”.

Click next on the “Before you Begin” page. You can choose to skip this page in the future.

Choose “Roles-based or feature-based installation” and click Next

I only have one server in the server pool, therefore, it is selected automatically. Click Next

Select Windows Deployment Services as shown below.

You will be prompted to add additional features that are required to manage WDS; click “Add Features”. Then click “Next”.

We have the roles selected. Click Next to continue

Click Next on the “Features” page

Please inform yourself about “WDS” and click Next to continue.

Ensure both Role Services are selected and click Next.

On the confirmation page, select “Restart the destination server automatically if required”.

You will be prompted to confirm your selection. Then click "Install".

As you can see, the installation has succeeded.

Please see “Uninstall WDS: How to remove Windows Deployment Services role via the GUI and PowerShell“, and “PXE BOOT Windows Deployment Service: How to deploy images to computers or virtual machines using WDS“.

Configure WDS Server

To configure Windows Deployment Services (WDS) after installing it on Windows Server 2022. Please follow the steps discussed below.

Note: WDS is designed to automatically fail over to other WDS servers. We recommend that you deploy two WDS servers at a minimum and then additional servers to increase redundancy for higher availability.

Launch the Server Manager, click on “Tools” at the top-right corner, and select “Windows Deployment Services”. Alternatively, click on WDS from the Server manager, right-click on the Server and “Windows Deployment Services Console”.

This will open the Windows Deployment Services console. Right-click on and select server name and select “Configure Server”.

Click on Next on the “Before you Begin” page.

Select the first option to integrate WDS with Active directory

Select the location where you want to store the images and other files used for deployment. I am okay with the default location. Click “Next” to continue.

This is a lab environment, so I do not care. Click “Yes” to confirm and then click Next to proceed.

I will select the option “to respond to all known client computers”. You can always change these settings at a later time.

As you can see, we are done configuring our WDS server.

Start WDS Service

To start WDS service, right-click on the server and select “All Tasks” and then “Start”.

As you can see, our newly setup WDS is running as expected.

I hope you found this article on “Install Windows Deployment Services on Windows Server 2022” useful. Please feel free to leave a comment below.