One of my fellow Microsoft Services consultants from the UK Adam Shepherd, has just had an article published in TechNet Magazine. The article provides advice on how to scale BDD. This includes how to to support multiple databases, use DFS-R and how to leverage WDS. The advice is based on learning...

The big secret is now out! BDD has officially had a name change, the next version will be called Microsoft Deployment. I was hoping the new name would be "the solution accelerator formerly known as BDD" but I don't think that even made it to first cut because the acronym would have been too long ...

I am often asked how to setup a custom task sequence that will continue after a reboot. If you have created a custom task sequence to install a number of applications that includes a reboot then you will know the problem I am taking about. When you do this you will find that the computer will reboot...

As promised in a previous blog post here is a script to move a computer to the correct OU from within the host operating system. There are two situations where I find this script useful: When a computer object already exists in Active Directory for the computer you are deploying. In this situation...

I am often asked how I install and configure BDD 2007. So I thought now was a good time to detail at a high level the process I go through to create and deploy operating system images using BDD 2007. This is not a step by step guide but more of a rant about how I do BDD and the reasons why. The...

Many of my customers have Group Policy settings that are very restrictive and cause problems during operating system deployments. For example the legal notice messages can interrupt an automated logon process. This can be a real hassle to get around when deploying so to solve the issue the I perform...

When troubleshooting the BDD deployment I often make a change then test. Then find that I need to make another adjustment and test again. Well this this process can be time consuming especially if you have to wait for Windows PE to reboot each time. Well I have a couple of tips to help speed this...

I have previously published posts detailing how you can perform bulk updates to the database and how you can use the LTI wizard to prompt for information in ZTI deployments. Now I think it's about time I show you how to combine these two features and populate the database with the information gathered...

I am often asked how I perform bulk updates to the BDD 2007 database. BDD 2.5 provided a tool to perform this task but BDD 2007 does not. To get around this issue I use a simple CSV import process. Unlike the BDD 2.5 the BDD 2007 database is made up of multiple tables, so when adding computers to...

For all of you that are new to BDD 2007 (and some of those that aren't) I would highly recommend getting your hands on the "Quick Start for BDD 2007" white paper. As it says it will help you quickly get started with BDD without the need for wading through the BDD documentation. This can be obtained from...

I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked to help some troubleshoot their database issues, so I decided it was time to write a blog about it. This blog details the common issues faced when using the BDD configuration database. The first part details the common causes of database issues...

Everytime Intel releases a new mass storage chipset I receive the same call/email from from most of my customers and it goes something like this: "Hi Ben, I have just got a new machine and I can't deploy an image to it, do you know what is going on?" The problem they are having is that their...

Richard Smith one of my fellow Microsoft consultants from the UK has started a blog (finally!). Richard is very knowledgeable on everything about BDD and operating system deployment so I am sure you will find his blog very useful. Richard has started his blog with two great video walk through's covering...

Before you can troubleshoot BDD 2007 you need to clearly understand the many logs used during an OS deployment. If you understand what log to refer to and at what time you will find things that where once mysterious become understandable. With this in mind I thought I would provide this quick guide...

I am sure that many of you a very keen to use the functionality demonstrated in the PowerShell Guy's BDD 2007 teaser. Well be teased no more..... it’s available! http://thepowershellguy.com/blogs/posh/archive/2007/06/14/powertab-0-93-powershell-tab-expansion-scripts-library.aspx This is a fantastic...

Hands up everyone who has tried to add an application to the task sequence and been frustrated by the fact that you can not control the order of the applications. Instead you have too scan through a list of applications that are ordered by the time you imported the application into the Deployment Workbench...

When using BDD to deploy and OS one of the first things it does is detect information about the hardware via WMI. As part of this detection process it determines the Chassis Type of the machine. By using this information we can configure the rules to perform different tasks based on the hardware type...

When trying to manage drivers and hardware specific application with BDD 2007, I have found that with some model types (HP D530) return many variations on the same model number. While these have slight variations to their model names they have virtually no difference to their driver set. This means that...

How often when creating a your perfect image do you find that you run through image build process only to find that one of your applications fails to install? I find this to be a very commmon occurence. After a cursing about how I have just wasted another hour I ring the wife and tell her I am going...