Ben Hunter

The Last Post

2008-01-27T11:41:00Z

Well I am sad to say that this is my last post. But don't worry I have something better. I have been thinking for quite a while that there are so many different blogs out there with useful deployment information. This is great but it can be difficult to keep track of them all, there must be a better way. With this in mind myself and a number of other guys that have deployment related blogs have decided to combine our efforts into one blog called " The Deployment Guys ". But that is not all.... We...(read more)

Microsoft Deployment - Released

2007-11-12T10:21:00Z

Well it looks like I no longer have to answer the question "when will Microsoft Deployment be released?" with the response "sometime soon :)". Microsoft Deployment is now released!! I wont go into all the details of what MDT does, you will find that information in many blogs (including my previous and future posts) and within the MDT documentation itself. Instead I would simply congratulate the development team for producing a worthy successor to BDD. If you want to download MDT then you will find...(read more)

BDD 2007 - TechNet Magazine article worth reading

2007-10-28T12:22:00Z

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's from real world so you should find it practical. If nothing else it should help you further understand just how flexible BDD really is. So go out there and read this article and remember to keep an eye...(read more)

BDD is now Microsoft Deployment

2007-10-25T10:55:00Z

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 (TSAFKABDD). I think it is fairly obvious that now the server and desktop deployment tools had been unified into one solution accelerator that it needed a a more appropriate name. So start making up new acronyms...(read more)

BDD 2007 - How to create a Custom task sequence with reboots

2007-10-09T21:44:00Z

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 and then return to the logon prompt. The computer does not automatically logon :(. So you logon manually and BDD does not continue, so you have to manually launch the litetouch.wsf script :(. Then FINALLY...(read more)

BDD 2007 -How to ensure the computer is in the correct OU

2007-10-07T12:25:00Z

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 the existing computer object will be reused and the computer will remain in the original computer objects OU. When you are using a Staging OU during deployment. In this situation the computer is added to...(read more)

Deployment 4 - UPDATE - How to create a custom task sequence

2007-09-26T23:16:00Z

I have previously mentioned how to create a custom task sequence to save time when testing application installation in BDD 2007. You will find the article here . There are two problems you could run into when using this process with Deployment 4. If you create a custom task sequence based on a REPLACE template then it fails saying it cannot find \distribution$\control\ts.xml If you use a different template then I get an error saying you haven’t specified a deploymenttype value. These problems are...(read more)

BDD 2007 - How do you do it?

2007-09-20T23:21:00Z

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 first thing I must say is that this is just my way of doing installing BDD. And I am sure that there are many people using BDD in different ways, which may well be better than mine. BDD is a very flexible...(read more)

BDD 2007 - Special characters special problems

2007-09-20T02:07:00Z

Here is a simple tip when using BDD. DO NOT use special characters anywhere. They cause problems. Let's illustrate this with an example. I create an application with the name "AT&T Dialer". Then when I add this application to the task sequence I see that it is now displayed as "INSTALL-ATT Dialer". You can also have problems when you use special characters in your password. This causes issues when BDD tries to save the password to the unattend.xml file, causing the build to fail. So my simple...(read more)

Deployment 4 – Who stole my build?

2007-09-19T02:42:00Z

Well for those of you that have already installed Deployment 4 may have notice that Deployment 4 does not use builds anymore. Task sequences are used instead. Task sequences are very similar to builds with a few subtle changes. All of the task sequence configuration information is now maintained within the task sequence itself, NOT in the general and settings tabs settings tab. So let’s compare builds and task sequences. The screen shots below are from a BDD 2007 build. So where exactly is this information...(read more)

Deployment 4 (the next version of BDD) - Beta 3 Released

2007-09-17T11:11:00Z

It looks like the BDD team has been very busy! They have just released Deployment 4 Beta 3 the worthy successor to BDD 2007. Having spent a reasonable amount of time testing Deployment 4 I must say I am very impressed, particularly when it is combined with SCCM. So what is it that has impressed me about Deployment 4? Support for both desktop and server deployment Integration with SCCM - right into the SCCM console itself Enables the use of static IP's (very important for server deployment) Enhanced...(read more)

BDD 2007 - How to move a computer object in Windows PE

2007-09-16T12:47:00Z

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 by performing one of the following steps: 1. If the computer is already in the domain - I move the computer to a "Staging OU" that has no group policy settings applied. 2. If the computer is not in the...(read more)

BDD 2007 - Time saving tips - How to manually restart the build process

2007-09-10T23:15:00Z

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 process up! When troubleshooting BDD 2007 deployment issues there is a quick way to restart the deployment process without having to restart the computer. I detail methods for both LTI and ZTI deployments...(read more)

BDD 2007 - A pretty good ZTI front end

2007-08-28T10:44:00Z

In the past I have written a number of blogs about how you can use the LTI wizard to create a customized front end for your ZTI deployments. They detail both how to use the wizards to gather information, how to automatically enter this information into the database once you have gathered it and hint at how you could extend this functionality yourself without too much trouble. So with that preface I must direct you all to Johan Arwidmark's site . Johan has created a pretty good ZTI front end in my...(read more)

BDD 2007 - How to Prompt for information then update the database

2007-08-14T00:41:00Z

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 by the wizard. This process can be very useful when you are trying to build a client that is not in the database. Generally the build process starts and a database lookup is performed to determine the...(read more)