We are pleased to announce Acronis Snap Deploy 4. This is a comprehensive deployment solution that enables IT organizations to deploy or restore laptops and desktops quickly and easily.
Before you install the product, please carefully read the "Installation notes" and "Known issues" sections of this document.
What's new in Acronis Snap Deploy 4
The following new functionalities have been added:
Windows 7/2008 R2 support
Ability to deploy Microsoft Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) images
Failing Back to Unicast
Support for multiple NICs
GUI for Create Master Image and ASD agent in WinPE media
Acronis Customer Experience Program
Collect system information
Machine list and individual settings
Enhanced user interface
Ability to build PE media straight to the PXE Server and ISO format.
Sending WOL-packets through all available NICs on Deploy Server and WOL proxy agent.
New Acronis Backup and Recovery style installer
No reboot during installation
Smart Error Reporting
New license type support: Deployment License
Compatibility with Acronis Backup and Recovery image format
Common License Server for Acronis Backup and Recovery and Acronis Snap Deploy
Suitable and meaningful error messages
Enhancements:
Multivolume images support
Displaying local disks in Standalone Utility
No need to remove master computer from AD
Displaying transfer rate for deployment
No password protection for booting OS
Changing SID support in WinPE
WinPE e-mail notifications
Adding driver for WinPE media
For details on the new features, please refer to the feature description.
Installation notes
To install Acronis Snap Deploy 4, follow these steps:
Run the setup file.
Click Typical installation.
Accept the terms of the license agreement.
Follow the on-screen instructions.
Installation notes
Ability to deploy from VHD
Master images are becoming old very fast. Application versions and paths needs to be updated. In ASD 3 this requires deploying, updating and re-imaging a machine. ASD 4 allows you to choose a VHD image and deploy it directly.
Support for multiple NICs
If a machine has multiple NICs (including Wi-Fi) in ASD 3, it takes more than one license from a license server (one for one NIC). In ASD 4 only one license is taken.
Failing back to Unicast.
If multicast doesn’t work in ASD 3, deployment cannot be completed. This is true even thought it would be possible to complete it via Unicast. In ASD 4 it would possible to switch to Unicast automatically if multicast is disabled
Stream lined user interface
ASD 3 had several items in the welcome page confusing the user about how to begin working and what steps to follow. The new welcome screen has 3 main entrance points and the user can easily understand where to click. All wizards were redrawn in a new style.
System report
It can collect system information in a Windows console as well as in Linux media.
ACEP
In Acronis, all products except ASD have ACEP. This allows for gathering statistics on items our products use most often and what needs to be improved. Also, it periodically sends logs that help find narrow places and fix them. Now ASD also has ACEP.
GUI for WinPE media.
Linux-based media is known to have problems with new hardware. Therefore, support for new hardware is especially important for provisioning of new machines. In ASD 3 media there is only cmd. In ASD 4, Master Image Creator and Snap Deploy Agent were added to WinPE media. Functionality of WinPE media is now similar to Linux-based media functionality.
Enhancement: No password protection for booting OS
In ASD3, password protection for the boot menu protects all menu entries including booting to the OS. In ASD 4, booting the OS is always possible without entering a password.
Enhancement: Displaying local disks in Standalone Utility
In ASD 3, local disks are hidden when selecting an image for deployment for the bootable media. This confuses users because it makes them think that the disk is not recognized. In ASD 4, all disks are shown. However, the user is not able to select it. This is done to prevent choosing the disk with the image as a target.
Select NIC for WoL
ASD 3 had the following issue: if a machine with WoL or DS had several NICs and each NIC was connected to different sub networks, then trying to boot the machine from one sub network could result in the wrong NIC being used. In ASD 4, WoL Proxy tries to boot the machine by using each NIC that is installed.
New installer in Horizon style
ASD3 installer asks the user to install each of the components individually which takes time and requires understanding of the components. The new ASD4 installer allows for the installation of all components in one operation. Default mode doesn’t require the user to understand or choose ASD components.
Snap Deploy is treated as a single integrated product. The user installs Snap Deploy as a whole and not as separate components.
For advanced or experienced users, there is still a way to choose specific components.
Universal Deploy is now a part of Deploy Server and is installed with it automatically.
No reboot during installation
None of ASD4 components require rebooting during or after installation, updates or upgrades. If stopping services or closing applications is necessary, an installer offers to do it or proposes to reboot afterwards as an alternative.
New license type support: deployment license
In ASD 4, a new license type was added: deployment license. This license allows one successful deployment. If the same machine is deployed again, another per-deployment license is taken.
Compatibility with ABR and ASD3 image format
It is possible to use backups created with Acronis Backup & Recovery (including incremental backups) for deployment through centralized deployment (using Deploy Server), Standalone deployment and WinPE CMD.
Windows 7/2008 R2 support
Acronis Snap Deploy supports Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 as infrastructure platform and as operating systems to be deployed.
Known issues
You can use Win PE media if Linux-based boot components cannot detect any of the machine’s hardware.
Message "Access is denied" appears when trying to remote install components if UAC on a target machine is enabled and the machine is not a member of Active Directory. Please disable UAC on the remote machine to be able to use remote installation or use a domain administrator account if remote machine is in domain.
SID doesn't change after deployment for Windows SBS server 2011.
Network card drivers are not injected to the target machine when deploying with Universal Deploy (AUD) if they are stored on network share. Please add them manually
When working under WinPE media, a static IP address cannot be used for an agent. If there is no DHCP server on the network, use a Linux-based media and assign the IP address manually.
ABR and ASD 4 PXE are not compatible. If you want PXE to be used by both ABR and ASD, please install them on different machines.
Adding a large number of licenses can take a long time (about 30 seconds for 200 licenses).
If you start the Create Image wizard and then connect or disconnect one of the USB drives, there will be multiple errors related to all drives; for example, "Failed to read from the sector 0 of the hard disk 1". Do not plug or unplug any USB drives while create master image is working.
The "Application to run" option does not work after deployment of Windows 7 and Windows 2008. To automatically run an application or script under the OS, use the "Files to transfer" option to copy the file, script, or link to the script to the "Startup" folder of target machines. For example: C:\Users\USER1\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
Other Resources and Linkss
The following resources contain useful information about Acronis Snap Deploy 4: