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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.

Blue Screen of Death Appears at TechDays Ottawa

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The dreaded blue screen of death has appeared at TechDays here in Ottawa.

Blue Screen of Death in WINRE TechDays Demo

This was in the Windows Recovery session and it was part of the demo. They made it appear by feeding “Green Eggs and Ham” to SAM. When the SAM is replaced by something that is not supposed to be there, this is what happens. WINRE was used to recover the SAM and make the computer boot again.

This was just one of the many great sessions on Day 1 of TechDays in Ottawa. I presented the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 (MDT 2010) on Day 1; Day 2 is running today and I will be presenting Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 (WSUS). There are many great sessions going on today; Exchange 2010, DirectAccess and Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 (ACT) are some of today’s great sessions, so be sure to check them out.

I Passed the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Exam

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I wrote the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit exam this past Wednesday. The exam number is 70-635, TS: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008, Desktop Deployment and I managed to pass. I don’t use the Zero Touch (ZTI) features of MDT, no SCCM, no SMS, no MOM. I exclusively use Light Touch (LTI) with WDS and sometimes a USB boot key for my installs in my production environment, which put me at a slight disadvantage for the exam. Unfortunately, there are no training guides for this exam as of yet. There are study guides for 70-624 which cover BDD, the predecessor to MDT. So those will help a little. There were also some podcasts which covered ZTI and the preparation I did for TechDays helped me cover the areas I didn’t know as solid  for this exam.

There was close to 80 questions on this exam, so this is not for the faint of heart. All in all, 70-635 was a good solid exam covering all facets of Office 2007 and Windows Vista deployment with MDT. With 76 or so questions to write, it is time consuming, but worth it if you want to prove your worth with Microsoft Deployments.