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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.

 

 

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and Window 7

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Windows 7 doesn’t install using MDT yet. I tried yesterday to install to my computer and it failed out with an unattend.xml error. I am not surprised but a little disappointed. The image imports okay, calls itself Windows Vista though in MDT (MDT not programmed to recognize the new version) comes up with the proper version number and all the editions on the CD like Windows Vista did. it starts up on the right track, but fails later on applying the image.

My next attempt is going to be installing Windows 7 from WDS, (Windows Deployment Services) which I am guessing will work fine and I won’t apply an unattend file but manually answer all the questions. I’ll see what happens and post the results back here.

Deploying Windows XP with MDT

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I’ve been working on trying to get some new machines deployed and some old machine’s refreshed with newer software for the past couple of days. I’ve been deploying both Vista and XP using MDT. I learned a few tricks that I want to pass along to everyone.

Deploying XP is best when you copy the source files to the Operating Systems section. I had syspreped a machine image, booted into PE and then used ImageX to make the wim file, but what was happening was when you redeployed it, the machine would get into a boot loop and never boot up. It was the same hardware that the image was created on so I know it wasn't a HAL issue.

By copying over the source files, the machine will build itself from scratch, so you need to find sources for all the programs you intend to install. Luckily for me, everything I want to install is available as a silent install msi package. Adobe products are available for redeployment, you just need to request the files which was something I found out a couple of months back. Live messenger I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to do that one, but luckily I found an MSI file for messenger 8.5. I still have a few bugs to iron out of the XP build as I just got it working this past afternoon, but it is coming along great.

Vista installs are going good as well. One of the tricks I found last night was how to get games to install for Vista Business. By default, the games are off, but these machines are for the library, so I have to install them. Creating an application install for MDT with the following command line does the trick which is better then going into Control Panel and finding the install Windows components.

Command line: pkgmgr.exe /iu:InboxGames /quiet

I pretty much have the computers to the point where I just login the patron account, ensure it looks okay, check and make sure everything is working, then turn on disk protection in SteadyState.