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Using MDT 2010 to Deploy Windows 7 to a VHD

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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.

The post from the Deployment Guys blog explains how to deploy Windows 7 using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 (MDT 2010) to a computer and instead of deploying to Disk 0 Partition 1, it is set to deploy to VHD file.

How to Setup MDT to Create a Boot from VHD Deployment

So how do we do this? Here’s the point form version. (You can get pictures from the Deployment Guys blog)

  1. Create a task sequence to deploy Windows 7
  2. You are going to insert 3 steps in the Pre-Install \ New Computer only phase
  3. Edit the task sequence that changes how the drive is partitioned (I presented how to do this at TechDays Ottawa). In this case we don’t want to partition or format the drive. Disable this task sequence.
  4. Insert a Set Task Sequence Variable Step named Set Boot VHD Location. You set the location of the VHD file is by setting the Task Sequence Variable to BootVHDLocation and set the Value to the location where you want the file to exist. (for example C:\Boot1Windows7.vhd) Ensure that the file you named in the variable doesn’t already exist.
  5. Insert a Set Task Sequence Variable Step named Set Boot VHD Size. Set the task sequence variable to BootVHDSize and set the value to the maximum size you want the VHD to be. Ensure you have enough space to grow to the maximum.
  6. Insert a Run Command Line Step and call it Setup VHD. The command line is cscript.exe “%SCRIPTROOT%\ZTIDiskPartVHD.wsf (There is no start in value.)
  7. Download the script ZTIDiskPartVHD.wsf and copy is to your Distrobution$\Scripts folder. The link to the script is at ZTIDiskpartVHD.zip
  8. Run your task sequence on a computer and it will install Windows 7 into a VHD.

This doesn’t work on machines that use Bitlocker to encrypt the drive.

The full article can be found at: http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2009/03/03/deploying-win-7-to-boot-from-vhd-with-mdt-2010.aspx. They have pretty pictures to help you out.

This is a really smart way to boot into different environments. You can have different VHD images for different tasks, ie. One for programming, one for gaming, etc. Pretty sweet and easy to deploy when using MDT

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 (MDT 2010)

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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.

What’s New?

  • Support for deploying Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 in addition to deploying Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP SP3, and Windows 2003 SP2
  • Hard Link Migrations using USMT 4 for Refresh scenarios which will dramatically reduce your user state backup and restore time
  • Integration of the new Windows AIK 2.0 Beta toolset such as DISM and BCDBOOT, and Windows PE 3.0

Also note, this version is for LAB deployments of Windows 7 using Lite Touch. Michael Niehaus recommends you not deploy this into your live environment which, for most people, is smart idea. No one has ever accused me of being smart or being like most people, but since I don’t want to break my existing MDT setup, I’ll install this to a Hyper-V server and make a test environment for myself. If I get a chance to give it a thorough test and it doesn’t break what I have working already, it might just end up in my live environment before Groundhog’s Day.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and Bootable USB Sticks

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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

diskpart

select disk 1
clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

active

format fs=fat32

assign

exit

Note:The value of disk 1 is equal to the UFD’s disk ID. 
Ensure that you are using the correct disk ID.

Once you completed that, go to your Media deployment point. This is important, you need to create a deployment point for removable media and then update the files so it populates the share. It will then create a content folder so copy the contents of that folder to the root of the USB stick and make the bootmgr file on the USB stick a system file and you’ll be off to the races.

Remember to get your hands on a fast USB stick, as I followed these instructions on a slow USB stick and it ended up taking 15 minutes to put 1.5gb on the stick and it was taking a long time to boot into PE. I was called out so I had to give up for the time being but I will be getting a faster and a few more USB stick to handle the roll out in the smaller branches.