Archive for the ‘Microsoft Deployment Toolkit’ Category
I may have helped to deploy 3.5M Windows 7 Desktops worldwide.
Last Dec 2009, I produced a series of 7 videos covering how to deploy Windows 7 using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. Hmm there’s a touch to that — 7 deployment videos for Windows 7.
As of last checking the hits since last checked on the first week of Jan 2010, I noticed that there was a jump of an average of 20,000 additional hits. If these 20K IT professionals have deployed at least 100 Windows 7 machines each, then 20,000 x 100 = 2,000,000 Windows 7 Desktops in two years because of my efforts! This is not counting the first year of these videos where they earned their first 15,000 viewers.
All in all, 35,000 viewers x 100 Windows 7 desktops each = 3.5M desktops!!! Nice!
Thank you to the viewers of those videos. I really hope that i made THAT difference in the deployment community.
Windows 7 Deployment Series Videos by Jay Paloma
- Part 1 – Generate WinPE Boot CD
- Part 2 – Use WAIK to Acquire WIM Image
- Part 3 – Using WAIK to Apply WIM Image
- Part 4 – Use MDT to Acquire WIM Image
- Part 5 – Importing WIM into MDT and Deploying
- Part 6 – Deploying via MDT Media
- Part 7 – Deploying MDT via Network Share
jay paloma | 03 jan 2012 | singapore
Windows 7 Deployment Essentials – Part 1 of 3
Three Philippine Windows Users Group (PHIWUG) presidents who are MVP’s cooked up something for PHIWUG – a 3-part Windows 7 Deployment session. I delivered Part 1 while on-vacation in Manila last September 2, 2011. The event almost did not push through because my flight was diverted 80 kms north to Clark Field in Pampanga to refuel. Good thing that the plane flew us back to Manila, and what could have been a 3-hour bus ride is now a 10-min plane ride. Since I was expecting to land in Manila at 12:30PM, and now I’ve landed at 3:30PM and the event is at 6PM, I went straight to Microsoft Philippines from the airport — no time to rest!
In this event, I discussed real-world scenarios on deploying Windows 7. Part 2 and Part 3 don’t have fixed dates yet.
MDT 2010 Update 1 – Part 3 of 3 – Customizing UDI
UDI Wizard Designer
One of the core features of User Driven Installation is that the UDI Wizard is customizable. Basically, the UDI Wizard pages are customizable, and can be enabled or disabled by the admin using the UDI Wizard Designer. In fact, the admin can configure the settings and display behavior of each option in the UDI Wizard. In the example below, the language and time zone settings are set, and the Page Behavior is set to Silent so that the settings will be implemented during deployment without displaying the Language Page in the UDI Wizard.
Figure 10: UDI Wizard Designer
Summary
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1 is a free tool that is available in the Microsoft Download Center (http://download.microsoft.com). Its new feature called User Driven Installation would provide your organization with a highly customizable deployment method that allows deployment choices to be done by the user. If your organization is on SCCM 2007, download and try it now! Even if you don’t have SCCM 2007, your organization can still enjoy the benefits of Lite Touch Installation (LTI) to deploy Windows 7 and Office 2010.
MDT 2010 Update 1 – Part 2 of 3 – User Driven Installation Wizard
User Driven Deployment Wizard
Let’s not take a look at what happens with a typical UDI deployment scenario. Those with experience with LTI would notice the similarity in structure with the LTI Deployment Wizard.
1. Boot up and password. After booting from the UDI Media, the user is presented with a password prompt to be able to access the media contents.
Figure 2: UDI Wizard – Media Password
2. Welcome screen. Then the user will be presented with a welcome screen. As we shall see later, the text on this welcome screen is customizable using the UDI Wizard designer.
Figure 3: UDI Wizard – Welcome
3. Computer name and domain/workgroup information. The user will now be asked for computer name and domain/workgroup membership and credentials if necessary. Note that this is configurable and may be configured as Silent in the UDI Wizard Designer, so the user won’t have to address this.
Figure 4: UDI Wizard – Computer Name and Domain Membership
4. Language and Time Zone. After the computer details, the user will be prompted for the Administrator password, then Language and Time Zone. The Language to install options had been preconfigured in the UDI Wizard Designer .
Figure 5: UDI Wizard – Language and Time Zone
5. Image and volume information. Then the user will now be presented with options preferred image and volume location to install the image. Like the previous option, this can be configured by the admin using the UDI Wizard Designer so that the non-technical user will not have to deal with what could be for them a highly technical matter.
Figure 6: UDI Wizard – Image and Volume
6. Applications. Next the user will be presented with which apps will be installed. In UDI, the apps can be customized into groups so the user can choose which group of apps he or she wants to install.
Figure 7: UDI Wizard – Applications
7. Wizard completes and deployment begins. After all the options are put in place, UDI displays a summary screen, then SCCM will now install Windows 7 and all the apps that the user selected.
Figure 8: UDI Wizard – Installation
8. UDI Ends in Logoff State. After installation completes, the newly installed Windows 7 is left in the Deployment Complete dialog box, and when the user clicks Start Windows, it displays the typical Windows 7 logged off state.
Figure 9: UDI Wizard – Deployment Complete
MDT 2010 Update 1 – Part 1 of 3 – What is User Driven Installation?
This post is part of a document I wrote about User Driven Installation. The document is split up into 3 blog posts.
Microsoft recently released the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 Update 1, a free tool to make it easier for organizations to deploy Windows 7 and Office 2010 in their corporate environment. In addition to the usual Lite Touch Installation (LTI) and, with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), Zero Touch Installation (ZTI), MDT 2010 Update 1 now also includes User Driven Installation (UDI) deployment method.
What is User-Driven Installation?
The concept of users having control of operating system and application installation has been around in LTI in MDT and its predecessor Business Desktop Deployment or BDD. From a business standpoint this is beneficial as it minimizes IT interaction with the workstations, thereby lowering deployment costs.
The challenge of using LTI as the deployment method in larger organizations is the lack of control it gives to the IT organization. Once the core components of LTI had been set up, all the user has to know is to press F12 during boot-up and enter the password required for MDT, then the user can virtually reinstall Windows 7 and Office 2010 on his machine unlimited number of times. In fact, the user can bring any machine and reinstall Microsoft software on them and they may not even be company property and the admins may not even know about it. That said, MDT alone provides so much flexibility to the user, that it may do so at the expense of security and control to the IT organization.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have ZTI, which comes as a feature of MDT and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) working together. ZTI gives full automation of the Windows 7 deployment, without leaving anything configurable to the user. This may be a highly efficient solution, but in a real-world scenario, organizations may not be willing to go for a big-bang, fully automated Windows 7 deployment approach. Somehow users need to be involved in the deployment process without impacting the IT organization’s control. This is where User Driven Installation of MDT 2010 Update 1 comes in handy.
Figure 1: User Driven Installation (UDI) combines the best of LTI and ZTI
In the context of MDT 2010 Update 1, User Driven Installation (UDI) is a deployment method that combines the best of both LTI and ZTI. With UDI, deployment is initiated on the client machine, and the user is given the opportunity which apps are to be installed on the machine, similar to LTI. But the administrator can still control which physical machine can be deployed with Windows 7, similar to ZTI. The administrator would also know via SCCM the status on whether or not the Windows 7 deployment was successful on each machine.
With UDI you get the mechanism of Windows 7 deployment performed by the users in LTI, and the security and control provided by ZTI.
TechNet Edge: Advanced Deployment Scenarios using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010: (Part 1 of 7) Reviewing the Available Options in the Deployment Workbench
In this demonstration we’ll review the CustomSettings.ini file before we make any customizations to the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) . We’ll also look at what the default experience is from the client computers perspective and step through the different panes in the Windows Deployment Wizard.
Video Series: Deploying Windows 7 from Windows XP
This is a video series on Deploying Windows 7 from Windows XP using the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010.
The first time I knew Microsoft Deployment Toolkit was during Windows Vista days. I found this an awesome technology added to the fact that it is free. Unfortunately, not many organizations really embraced Windows Vista, thereby overlooking this technology, and others that are related to Windows client deployment (e.g., WAIK, WIM).
Microsoft has gone through great lengths in ensuring that Windows deployment would be a breeze in organizations that would have gone to Windows Vista, and will go to Windows 7. Therefore I have created this video series to share the best practices I gathered from the field on using these two free tools – MDT 2010 and WAIK – to deploy Windows 7 across the organization consisting of Windows XP machines.
A lot of folks may eventually figure out that Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) is too cumbersome because of the fact that its tools are non-GUI, and that MDT is actually the GUI version of WAIK. However, I strongly recommend to technology professionals to familiarize themselves with at least the deployment cycle using WAIK alone, then adopting them to an automated process like MDT. This would give us the proper balance between automation and flexibility.
WAIK is cool, as follows:
- You get to learn stuff under the hood. Although you can create WIM using MDT, managing it would still be through WAIK, therefore if you don’t have WAIK knowledge, you will end up with default WIM and not really maximize the new and cool features of the Windows Imaging technologies.
- Text-based = scriptable and flexible. It’s not entirely difficult to automate Windows 7 Deployment using WAIK alone because you can script it, and your options are limitless as to customizing your deployment.
- Let’s face it: text-based commands are cool … makes you look geeky.
But then again, having too much human control exposes the deployment exercise to human error, especially the processes that deal with the target machines. Those should be automated as much as possible.
So with that, here are the videos of the Windows 7 Deployment from Windows XP Series
Part 1 – Generating WinPE Boot CD on WAIK
Part 2 – Using WAIK to Acquire Windows 7 Image into WIM
Part 3 – Using WAIK to Deploy Windows 7 WIM Image into a New Machine
Part 4 – Using MDT to Acquire Windows 7 Image into WIM
Part 5 – Using MDT to Import a WIM Image and Using PXE Boot to Deploy
Part 6 – Windows 7 Deployment via MDT 2010 Media
Part 7 – Deploying Windows 7 via MDT Network Share
jay paloma | 29 dec 2009 | singapore
Jay Paloma's Tech and Music Blog 
