On Wed, 19 Nov 2014 21:10:45 -0500, "JT" wrote:


"micky" wrote in message
.. .
My Acer Aspire One netbook uses F2 to enter the BIOS and F12 to see the
Boot Order.

F12 only shows two items, the hard drive and Atheros network boot.

OTOH, F2 - Boot Order shows those two and USB hard drive, USB CD, and
USB Floppy.

The difference seems strange to me. ?

And I've googled and wikied for Atheros network boot or boot agent, and
can't find anything helpful. Is this a public service, so anyone who
can't boot without it can do so with it? I doubt that so could someone
give me a hint about what it does.


(I have an external CD drive, and an external HD, that I coudl boot with
but if I'm out of the house, it's a lot of effort to take one of those
with me.)

Thanks.



Micky,

Network boot can be used for imaging.

Windows Deployment Service or WDS is a service that can run on a Windows
Server (2003,2008,2012)

that allows for deployment of Windows or other OS's from the WDS server.

An ip address is assigned via dhcp upon network boot and the WDS menu is
displayed.

It is useful in installing an OS on a system that has no boot device (CD,DVD
etc..)

I use it extensively to install pre-configured images over the wire.

Speed is much faster than from optical media (DVD) as it runs on the LAN
(Gigabit ethernet in my case)

This is a extermely basic description of what "Network Boot" entails.

It's plenty. Thank you.

So not really applicable to most home users

And that's important too!

but I just wanted to give a
brief explanation of what the Atheros network boot can do.

Hope this helps....

JT