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Customizing Bootstrap.ini in MDT

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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.

This file basically has tells the Deployment wizard where to find the information it needs on the network. The file looks like this.

[Settings]
Priority=Default

[Default]
DeployRoot=\\SERVER01\DeploymentShare$

You can modify this file to point to a different location, so a different server and enter in credentials.

[Settings]
Priority=Default

[Default]
DeployRoot=\\%WDSServer%\DeploymentShare$

UserID=MDTAccount
UserDomain=yourdomain
UserPassword=Password123

SkipBDDWelcome=YES

Looking at the above file, I have done a few things. The first was to change the deployment root to point to the WDS Server that the boot.wim booted from. %WDSSERVER% is a variable that will populate with the WDS server name at launch time. If I have a specific server I want to run MDT from, then I would enter it in on DeployRoot instead. So if I wanted to use Server1, the line would be DeployRoot=\\Server1\DeploymentShare$

Another thing you can do is set the deployment share based on the default gateway. I seen the information on how to do that at the TechNet forums. Here is the URL -> http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/mdt/thread/62809d7e-553d-41b7-a92e-93ba3b1972c7

The next three lines show the user credentials used to connect to the deployment share.
The last line, self-explanatory, skips the BDD Welcome information.

Editing CustomSettings.ini in MDT

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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.

Lets have a look at my customsettings.ini file, the file is found in the Control folder. This file is on my memory stick and installs my Patron computer builds. What I do is block all pages except the computer name field. I manually enter the computer name and I am off to the races. It also will give me the final summary letting me know if everything worked or not.

[Settings]
Priority=Default
Properties=MyCustomProperty
 
[Default]
OSInstall=YES
SkipAdminPassword=YES
SkipApplications=YES
SkipAppsOnUpgrade=YES
SkipBDDWelcome=YES
SkipBitLocker=YES
SkipCapture=YES
SkipComputerName=No
SkipComputerBackup=YES
SkipDeploymentType=YES
DeploymentType=NEWCOMPUTER
SkipDomainMembership=YES
JoinDomain=yourdomain.local
DomainAdmin=Deployment_Account
DomainAdminDomain=yourdomain
DomainAdminPassword=Pa$$w0rd
SkipFinalSummary=No
SkipLocaleSelection=YES
KeyboardLocale=en-US
UserLocale=en-US
UILanguage=en-US
SkipPackageDisplay=YES
SkipProductKey=YES
SkipSummary=YES
SkipTaskSequence=YES
TaskSequenceID=VISTAPATRON
SkipTimeZone=Yes
TimeZone=035
TimeZoneName=Eastern Standard Time
SkipUserData=Yes

In order for this to work properly, we need ensure we modified our task sequences to install software we want installed. We also need to ensure when setting up the task sequence we entered in a license key (if needed) and the admin password.

I’ll be covering these customizations of a few blog posts. I am also going to be creating some instructional podcasts around MDT as well, so this could be included in that.

For more information on this as well, check out fellow MVP Mitch Tulloch’s posts on the subject at http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Deploying-Windows-7-Part7.html. He has a whole series dedicated to Windows 7 Deployment.

Exchange 2007 to 2010 Migration

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An upcoming project I have at work is to migrate our Microsoft Exchange 2007 Server to Microsoft Exchange 2010. There is no direct upgrade from 2007 to 2010, and my Exchange 2007 server is running Windows Server 2003 x64.

At a high level, in order to upgrade, I will need to install new temporary server running Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2010. I will then have to migrate the user mailboxes to the new temporary server. Once the migration is complete and Exchange 2007 is no longer being used or needed, I can then reinstall the operating system and install Exchange 2010 on the old machine. From there, I would move the mailboxes one more time from the temporary Exchange 2010 server to the permanent Exchange server.

I am lucky in that my migration is pretty straight forward and there isn’t more than a couple of dozen mailboxes to move. Hopefully it goes well.