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Goal: Be able to deploy Windows through WDS to different subnets (in different geographic locations) using only one WDS server located within the 'main' subnet (where I am).

Info: Each subnet is a different office, with 5+ offices across a few countries. I have the WDS server set up in head office, where I am, this works fine, as expected and having been using it for a few months to build/rebuild laptops. I would like to allow this functionality to be extended to the other offices. I would like to do this using only the main WDS server here and using DFS to replicate the storage of the images across each subnet.

I have access to most if not all of the network hardware, so I can forward UDP port 67 etc.

Question(s): Will DFS correctly pick the right location to install Windows from? Would it be better/require less management to have a WDS server on each subnet?

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I would recommend you look at using MDT instead, with local WDS machine at each site (not necessarily servers, but workstations if budget is an issue). DFS shares will not help you because of the way WDS unpacks the images in the local installation.

If you are dead set on using WDS only then you should at least consider having a WDS server at every location just for deployment purposes and script remote image updates via wdsutil

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  • Thanks Arturski. I ended up setting up WDS roles on each of the main branch servers. No more setting up Windows and shipping them off for me!
    – unLeaded
    Nov 13, 2013 at 11:29
  • Glad you found a good way, I am actually looking into a similar solution right now but am planing to use MDT and from what I learned there is a feature called Remote Distribution Shares. That will allow you to control everything from one place.
    – Arturski
    Nov 18, 2013 at 15:28

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