I was exploring last week how I could add a managed windows node in my internal test environment where I have a chef server.

Bootstrap a windows node has been possible quite a while but not so long ago the knife windows added the parameter for also setting up the client as a service. This was part of the Knife Windows 1.0 release as you can read on the Chef site.

Another great parameter now available is the –msi_url that gives the possibility to set the chef client msi path to something local if the servers cannot speak to the mighty Internet

happy chef-ing!