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MDT 2010 New Feature #14: Database improvements

TechNet Blogs > Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings > MDT 2010 New Feature #14: Database improvements

MDT 2010 New Feature #14: Database improvements

3 Jul 2009 1:17 PM
  • Comments 3

There were two main database limitations in MDT 2008 Update 1:

  1. We didn’t add any new “settings” columns – the list of available settings was still the same as it was originally in BDD 2007.
  2. To add new columns to the database and to have them show up in the Deployment Workbench required making code changes to Deployment Workbench, definitely not a trivial exercise.

With MDT 2010 Beta 2, we’ve fixed those limitations:

  • We’ve added lots of additional columns, enabling you to configure any setting that could be specified via CustomSettings.ini.
  • The upgrade process will modify any existing databases to add the new columns.
  • The user interface in the Deployment Workbench will show any new columns without making any code changes, so you can add your own columns to the Settings table fairly easily (some SQL Server knowledge is required, obviously).

image

If you are looking for the database node in MDT 2010 Beta 2, you can find it under the deployment share’s “Advanced Configuration” node.  That means that each deployment share can have its own database, too.

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  • 5 Aug 2009 2:07 PM

    Is it possible to add entire tables or only columns to existing tables?

    I've converted my environment to entirely run off of webservices, and have created two custom tables (following the layout that the current tables use, and using the same clustered-pkey structure to identify L/M/C/R, ID and Sequence)

     But i use mine to do things like automatically join AD Security groups, and bring down user-profile configurations dynamically based on location.   Will it be possible to add tables (without downloading sourcecode and modifying it to add new tabs/tables) or is this strictly limited to adding columns to the existing tables on a "category" basis?

    I do this to keep everything central to one server.  The same ini file can be delivered to 50 sites and i can control all 50' sites configurations from my one primary MDT box, making my 'server replication' much less often..  

    Just wondering, if not, no big deal, i can likely find a way to incorporate it into the existing tables, though it would likely be tricky.. some of my tables include actual script code (new lines tend to be problematic)

    Thanks :)

    -Dustin

  • 5 Aug 2009 2:41 PM

    The UI will only handle new columns added to the existing Settings table, sorry.

    -Michael

  • 6 Aug 2009 10:19 AM

    I figured, i remember poking around the source code and feeling the same way you did in the first section of this post :)  I ended up making a web-ui to handle it instead (less to update if the MDT gets changed)

    Thanks for the fast response! looking forward to rolling out MDT 2010 :)

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