User's Manual
14 Introduction
What’s New
The new features for this release include:
• Support for Windows PE 3.0 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Prerequisites and Requirements
The DTK is a collection of Windows PE- and Linux-based utilities and scripts
that assist in performing pre-operating system tasks and deploying Dell systems.
An advanced knowledge of Windows PE and Linux is required for users who
want to use the DTK utilities to perform pre-operating system configuration
tasks or to run a scripted deployment in the respective environments.
A pre-operating system environment is defined as the environment used to
configure system hardware before a major operating system, such as Windows or
Linux, is installed. The DTK utilities and scripts, for example, are executed in a
Windows PE or embedded Linux environment for hardware configuration.
Because of the open nature of the utilities and scripts and the environment in
which they can be used, it is strongly recommended that DTK users have an
advanced understanding of the Windows PE and Linux environment and scripting
knowledge for the respective environments. DTK users with an advanced
understanding of Windows PE and Linux can take full advantage of the utilities
and exploit their capabilities above and beyond what the sample scripts can provide.
CAUTION: Some of the DTK utilities can destroy data if used incorrectly. To avoid
the potential risk of data loss, take all necessary precautions to protect data so that
mission-critical systems are not disrupted in the unlikely event of a failure. See the
Deployment Toolkit Command Line Interface Reference Guide
for complete
information about the capabilities of each DTK utility.
Supported Operating Systems to Run DTK Utilities
For Windows PE, the DTK utilities support Windows PE version 2005 (created
using 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family with Service
Pack 1 [SP1]) and Windows PE 2.0 (created using 32-bit and 64-bit version
built on the Windows Vista kernel).
NOTE: DTK utilities do not support Windows PE created with any 64-bit version of
Microsoft Windows Server 2003.
For embedded Linux, the DTK utilities support Red Hat
®
Enterprise Linux
®
Server (version 4, update 4) 32-bit.