Archive for 'Microsoft Deployment Toolkit'
Customizing Bootstrap.ini in MDT
Posted on February 8, 2010, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
As I showed in my last post, you can make changes to customsettings.ini to really make your deployments go easier and quicker. Another file you can make changes to is the bootstrap.ini file.No Comments
Editing CustomSettings.ini in MDT
Posted on January 26, 2010, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
One of the neat things you can do with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 is you can customize it to show or hide screens when running through the deployment wizard.1 Comment
Pause Task Sequence in MDT 2010
Posted on January 6, 2010, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
With a new year comes new images for my MDT servers. At TechDays in Ottawa, I presented the MDT session in the client track on Day 1. Afterwards, I had some great discussions with a few people from major Canadian government offices. One of my challenges has been how to add extra software to an image which doesn’t have a great silent install. What I had been doing was building the machine using MDT, then when it was done, adding unfriendly software, patches, etc. to the build after. This is a pain as you have to then Sysprep the image, boot into a Windows PE environment then capture the image using ImageX.
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Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 Released
Posted on September 10, 2009, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
The new version of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT 2010) has been released today. MDT is the recommended toolset to automate server and desktop deployments. Having used it for about 2 years I find it the best tool for deploying new Windows computers. Every computer which enters into service in the library system has its operating system and its applications deployed onto using MDT.
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Using MDT 2010 to Deploy Windows 7 to a VHD
Posted on March 8, 2009, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
I was getting caught up on some blog reading over my lunch hour and noticed a new post by the Deployment Guys on their blog. If you didn’t know, with Windows 7, you can now boot from VHD; there is even a trick to make Windows Vista boot from VHD. Booting loads the VHD and uses your physical hardware, its a great way multi-boot a computer into an OS that is VHD aware. In the Microsoft world, at this point in time, this means Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.1 Comment
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 (MDT 2010)
Posted on January 12, 2009, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
The MDT 2010 Beta is now available on the Microsoft Connect site as I saw on the Deployment Toolkit Team Blog . This is the next version of the Microsoft Deployment toolkit, which is an accelerator for both OS and application deployments.
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Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and Bootable USB Sticks
Posted on December 8, 2008, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
I was working today on making my memory stick bootable so I could role out new images to the computers in the remote branches where I don’t have deployment servers. I did some searching and came across these instructions which are better than the instructions I posted couple of months back on making a USB stick bootable. I had tried them but must have missed a step cause it didn’t work for me. (I think I forgot to set the attributes for +S on bootmgr). Today I found these instructions, which did work. At the command prompt do the following
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Another Q&A from my Ottawa Session
Posted on November 30, 2008, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, Office 2007.
Another question which came up was in regards to licensing. How would one who has different license keys for their office installation use the MDT tool. Provided they were all the same version of Office (2007) just bought at different times, the easiest thing to do would be to install Office 2007 without specifying a product key, then on first run of a Office 2007 application, it will ask for the key. At that time, specify the key for that particular computer and you are off to the races.
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Q&A from my Session on MDT Today
Posted on November 27, 2008, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
I had an interesting question from Rick who works at CSC today with regards to MDT and being able to specify which model of computer gets which driver. If you put a driver in the Out of Box Drivers, the concern is you can’t specify which driver will be installed for a given machine, it will select what it feels is the best for the hardware. Now hardware companies like Dell and Lenovo make drivers for an ATI card along with ATI. If you add all three, which gets picked, how can he ensure the lenovo gets the lenovo driver and not the ATI driver for the card?
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Links from my Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Presentation Today at TechDays in Ottawa
Posted on November 27, 2008, by Todd, under Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
As promised in my presentation, here are the links to go with my presentation today at TechDays
