Deploying Windows 7 with WDS and MDT 2010 – Part4

This is going to be the last part of these series, and in this part I’m going to discuss how to deploy a captured image, and create rules that will automate those client installation wizards.

To start let’s import the captured image in MDT and create a task sequence for it, so right-click the Operating Systems folder in MDT and choose Import Operating System.

Select the Custom image file option.

Here select the image we captured in part three. If you saved the image in the default path, then is located in the Captures folder in your Deployment Share. If you want to move the image instead of copying it check the box Move the file to the deployment share instead of copying them.

On the Setup screen select the first option, Setup and Sysprep files are not needed. Since we already have a Windows 7 operating system imported in MDT with full set of source files (not a .wim image) we don’t need the second option. The deployment wizard needs the Setup.exe and other files from the Windows 7 DVD for deployment. If your MDT Operating Systems folder is empty, and no operating system with full set of source files is present, then you will need to select the second option Copy Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or later setup files from the specified path. The version of the operating systems must match, meaning you can’t have a Windows Vista or a Windows 7 Starter image with full set of source files and you deploy Windows 7 Enterprise.

Specify a directory name for the image and click Next.

Click Next on the Summary screen then Finish to close the wizard.

     

Now let’s create a task sequence for this image. Right click the Task Sequence folder and choose New Task Sequence. Complete the required information in the General Settings page and click Next.

Choose Standard Client Task Sequence and continue the wizard.

Select the captured operating system and click Next.

Do not specify a product key here, we are going to use rules for that in just a moment.

Complete the boxes on the OS Settings and continue.

Provide a local Administrator password and click Next. Finish the wizard.

If you want to update the Deployment Share, don’t do it, because we need to create some rules for automation. To create those rules right-click the Deployment Share name and choose Properties.

Here click the Rules tab, and as you can see we already have some rules, but they are not enough for our environment.

I’m going to paste here the rules I am using for my Windows 7 deployments, and you are welcome to use them for your environment. Remember, this rules are not going to work if you deploy Windows Vista or Windows XP, because the wizards are different on those operating systems. Modify this settings according to your environment; the last line is if you have a WSUS server in your network.

 

_SMSTSORGNAME=Adrian Costea's blog.
OSInstall=Y
SkipAppsOnUpgrade=YES
SkipCapture=YES
SkipAdminPassword=YES
SkipProductKey=YES
SkipDomainMembership=YES
     JoinDomain=vkernel.local
     DomainAdmin=Adrian
     DomainAdminDomain=vkernel.local
     DomainAdminPassword=admin
UserDataLocation=NONE
SkipUserData=YES
TimeZone=130
TimeZoneName=GTB Standard Time
SkipTimeZone=YES
SkipBitLocker=YES
SkipBitLockerDetails=YES
UserLocale=en-US
UILanguage=en-US
SkipLocaleSelection=YES
SkipApplications=YES
SkipComputerName=YES
SkipSummary=YES
SkipFinalSummary=NO
SkipTaskSequence=YES
TaskSequenceID=003
wsusserver=http://server-wsus

 

We are not done yet, the log on-screen still appears when the clients boot from the network and try to connect to the Deployment Share. To resolve this, click the Edit Bootstrap.ini button on the Rules tab. Put the following text at the end:

UserID=Adrian
UserDomain=vkernel.local
UserPassword=admin

keyboardLocale=en-us
skipbddwelcome=yes

Again modify the settings according to your environment. Close the Bootstrap.ini file and save the changes. Click OK on the Deployment Share Properties.

 

Now update the Deployment Share using the default settings. As you can see in the screen, the wizard detected some changes and it needs to regenerate the boot images.

After the update process is done, we need to replace the boot image in the WDS server with this new one, the one that contains the log on credentials to the Deployment Share. Delete the old image from the WDS server, then right-click the Boot Images folder and choose Add Boot Image.

Choose the x64 boot image and finish the wizard. Sometimes the new boot image is not recognized by the WDS server; in that case I just restart the WDS service.

     

Now is time to deploy and see how it works. I recommend you test o a single machine, and if everything works well, deploy to the rest of the systems. Force a client to boot from the network, and after the WinPE loads into the client memory, the system starts formating and copying files automatically, skipping the deployment wizards. This is what we wanted, a fully automated deployment of Windows 7.

      

Looks like we had a success here, and I want to thank you for bearing with me all this time. Feel free to ask any questions.

Want content like this delivered right to your

email inbox?


24 thoughts on “Deploying Windows 7 with WDS and MDT 2010 – Part4

Leave a Reply to Jose Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

css.php