Changing ASI server defaults

As you know, I was in Silicon Valley last week showing customers the DTM and ASI.  One thing I had to explain over and over was the server defaults in ASI.  For most people, the first OS they put on their ASI server is Windows XP.  The built-in default for ASI is Longhorn.  That means that if you run this command...

asi -install

It will fail.  If you run the GUI client you see why it's failing.  On the Selection tab the value for product is defaulting to Longhorn.  To get ASI to deploy Windows XP you have to override that default like this...

asi -install -product winxp

If Windows XP will be your default, however, you'd probably like to change that default.  Thankfully that is easy.  Just open the asidata.ini file.  It's in the asiserver folder.  The top of that file looks like this.

[GLOBALSERVER.DEFAULTS.ADD]
LAB =         MAIN
TYPE =        FRE
PRODUCT =     LONGHORN
LANGUAGE =    ENGLISH
AUTOLOGON =   Administrator
DISPLAY =     "800","600","16","70"
INSTALLTO =   "C:"
USERDATA =    "ASI User"

Simply change LONGHORN to WINXP.  You'll have to stop and restart the server service to force it to read this file again. 

Now you can deploy Windows XP with this simple command.

asi -install