Welcome to TechNet Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

Browse by Tags

All Tags » Tips and Tricks   (RSS)
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 5:41 PM

Keeping An Eye On USMT Progress v0.2

Back in June I posted a script that I’d written that displays the progress of the USMT capture and recover phases in a neat HTML window off to one side of the screen; particularly useful if you are capturing/recovering large amounts of data because otherwise
Posted by Daniel Oxley | 3 Comments
Attachment(s): CUSTOM_USMT_Tracker.vbs
Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:06 PM

Sharing some simple HTAs

I was recently asked to share these files with a colleague, so I thought I would also share them with everyone via our blog. I developed them a while ago for a deployment project and I have since used them a few times more. Basically, they are 3 very
Posted by Daniel Oxley | 1 Comments
Attachment(s): SimpleHTAs.zip
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 7:38 AM

USMT Error Codes

I was recently configuring the User State Migration Tool for a customer’s MDT server when, during the testing phase, the USMT began failing with an error code (‘return code’ or ‘rc’ when you read the MDT log files).  I searched the USMT documentation
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 7 Comments
Thursday, December 04, 2008 11:24 PM

User Experience for Configuration Manager Task Sequences - Part I

Ever wanted to add your own user communication and interaction to a Configuration Manager task sequence? Below is an HTML Application (HTA) that has a user interface for the task sequence with information about the deployment, a button to cancel or pause
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 4 Comments
Attachment(s): UserExperience.zip
Thursday, November 20, 2008 9:57 AM

Back to basics #3 – Branding the deployment and fixing the 0xc000000e problem

Two more tips for the blog. Actually, one is a tip and the other is the solution to a common problem I see! During the execution of a task sequence in MDT (normally while creating an image, or deploying one) the computer will display the Installation
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 7 Comments
Friday, October 17, 2008 10:48 AM

Back to basics #2 – 7 Things you shouldn’t do in a LiteTouch Deployment

The below list is a list of the most common mistakes made when creating a LiteTouch task sequence. While not an exhaustive list, it might help to improve your deployment experience when using MDT to create LiteTouch deployments. 1.) Hard-code paths to
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 6 Comments
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 9:27 PM

Porting Configuration Manager Task Sequences to a Different Environment

Many scenarios arise in which you may want to port your task sequence from one environment to another. Common scenarios include promotion through Lab and QA environments and migration between disconnected hierarchies. Configuration Manager allows you
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 1 Comments
Attachment(s): TSPromoScripts.zip
Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:41 PM

Placing your window on top during the WindowsPE stage

Back in March, Richard Smith wrote a post about how to move the Task Sequence window to one side so that you can display a new window in the centre of the screen without it being covered up by the “Always On Top” Task Sequence window. Richard’s solution
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 2 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 01, 2008 8:26 AM

Back to basics #1 – Locking the computer during deployment

This is the first post in a series that will cover some of the more simple/basic tricks that you can do with MDT, but that are often overlooked.  I’ll be the first to admit that a couple of them I only learnt recently, even though I have been using
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 9 Comments
Friday, August 29, 2008 4:31 PM

Logging All the Configuration Manager Task Sequence Variables

When debugging a MDT based Configuration Manager Task Sequence, it is often helpful to know what certain built-in Configuration Manager variables are set to during a step in the task sequence. For instance, you may want to see if _SMSTSLastActionRetCode
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 5 Comments
Attachment(s): OutputTSVariables.zip
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 8:39 AM

Non-shrinking WIM files

If you make regular changes to your WIM files with the use of the /MOUNTRW or /DELETE switches of IMAGEX, then you may have noticed that your WIM files do not shrink in size after you commit the changes back to the file.  You could delete 500mb of
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 7 Comments
Sunday, August 17, 2008 6:53 AM

Documenting Your Task Sequences Automagically

Often times, after creating an MDT or SCCM task sequence, you need to document it for yourself or your customers. Usually, this involves creating a table with the groups and steps, extracting their descriptions, identifying conditions and denoting the
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 8 Comments
Attachment(s): tsDocumentorv1.xsl
Thursday, August 07, 2008 4:32 PM

How to Setup ConfigMgr 2007 on Windows Server 2008

Installing ConfigMgr 2007 onto a Windows Server 2008 based server can be a challenge. Having recently been through the process for my own lab environment I thought I’d share the process in the hope that it will save you some time when you need to
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 16 Comments
Monday, July 28, 2008 8:59 PM

Task Sequence logic tricks using MDT variables

In my particular part of the Microsoft organization (the CTS testing lab), we install just about every OS, at every service pack level, on both major platforms. Because of this, I created a master template that is used to create dozens of task sequences
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 3 Comments
Wednesday, July 09, 2008 10:41 AM

MDT Script Explanations

I get quite a few emails from people asking if there is a help file that details all of the scripts that are supplied with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). The scripts form the engine of a deployment and can also help you to develop a framework for
Posted by DeploymentGuys | 1 Comments
More Posts Next page »
 
Page view tracker