GuillaumeD's blog : Microsoft Deployment

MDT 2010 Beta 1 disponible sur connect !

GuillaumeD — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:58:31 GMT

Toutes ces annonces ! C’est comme si un nouveau produit sortait !?

Nouveautés :

Support de Windows 7 Beta et de Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta
Support du WAIK 2.0 Beta
Support de USMT 4.0 (qui apporte lui aussi quelques innovations)
Dupport de DSIM
Support de WinPE 3.0

Disponible sur connect. download MDT 2010 now

Si avec tout ça, vous ne parvenez pas à déployer Windows 7…

~ Guillaume

Usefull post from Michael about MDT and Hyper-V

GuillaumeD — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:59:24 GMT

Michael Niehaus posted instructions to add Hyper-V Integration Components into WinPE :

Using the Hyper-V integration components with MDT 2008 Update 1 Lite Touch

~ Guillaume

L'éternel problème du pilote manquant...

GuillaumeD — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:27:00 GMT

Je me suis encore confronté aujourd'hui à la recherche du pilote de carte réseau qu'on ne trouve jamais...

Dans le contexte, à chaque workshop que je délivre autour de MDT, je bute toujours sur l'impossibilité de me connecter à mon point de déploiement depuis l'image WinPE Lite Touch... A chaque fois, c'est le petit désagrément qui me fait perdre du temps mais plus encore aux personnes à qui je présente cette solution. Et tout ça à cause d'un malheureux pilote de carte réseau manquant...

Situation assez frustrante dans l'absolu surtout quand on ne sait pas quel pilote choisir sur le site du constructeur car souvent... plusieurs sont proposés !

Comme par exemple pour le Dell PowerEdge 860 :

J'ai donc décidé de trouver un moyen simple, efficace et rapide (enfin autant que possible...) de trouver le pilote adéquat pour la carte réseau de la machine de démonstration qui est utilisée lors de mes interventions.

Et voici donc décrit mon raisonnement et les étapes que je mets en oeuvre pour trouver le pilote de la carte réseau d'une machine (en l'occurence toujours le Dell PowerEdge 860) qui ne dispose pas d'un système d'exploitation installé.

Identification de la carte réseau

L'idée tout d'abord est d'identifier le périphérique en lui-même. Ce qui peut être effectué en trouvant son modèle exact ou son device ID.

Pour identifier le device ID a coup sûr, il est possible d'exploiter WMI via la classe Win32_PnPEntity.

Voici donc un script VBS qui peut être exécuté sur la machine cible (toujours sans système d'exploitation installé) depuis une image WinPE générique (qui peut être générée depuis le Deployment Workbench) et qui va lister tous les périphériques présents :

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_PnPEntity",,48)
For Each objItem in colItems
    Wscript.Echo objItem.Manufacturer & _
    " <> " & objItem.Description & _
    " <> " & objItem.DeviceID
Next

Ce qui nous donne un output de ce type (sur le Dell PowerEdge 860) :

Où la carte réseau est :

Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet

et le device ID :

PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1659&SUBSYS_01E61028&REV_11\4&A082FAC&0&00E4

Bon, c'est bien mais où cela nous mène-t'il ? Les constructeurs ne proposent pas le téléchargement des drivers en les décrivant par le device ID...

Note : l'ID du fabricant est celui qui suit VEN_ (pour Broadcom : 14E4) et l'ID du périphérique est celui qui suit DEV_ (pour la carte réseau qui fait le sujet de ce post : 1659).

Là où il est question d'avoir de la jugeotte

Et c'est à ce moment que ma méthode devient empirique...

Je sais que ma carte réseau est une Broadcom... donc je vais me focaliser sur ce fabricant en éliminant ainsi les pilotes Intel, ce qui me laisse 3 choix parmi ceux de la capture présentée plus haut (l'intérêt de télécharger le HTML ou l'utilitaire ne me semble pas bien judicieux).

Parmi ces trois choix, le mieux serait peut être de prendre la dernière version, ce qui me permet d'identifier le driver Broadcom pour la famille de carte NetXtreme datant du 6 Mai 2008 :

Ce que je m'empresse de faire.

L'étape de vérification

Une fois le package téléchargé, je l'extrait dans un dossier temporaire afin de voir un peu ce qu'il me réserve et surtout si ma logique en a pris un coup ou non.

Ce qui me donne cette arborescence dans mon dossier temporaire :

Pas de trace de fichiers permettant d'installer mon pilote... Bon... Il faut savoir que Broadcom fourni un package d'installation (setup.exe) dans le dossier Driver_Management_Apps_Installer que l'on peut lui aussi extraire (en exécutant setup.exe /a) pour en découvrir le contenu (dans mon exemple, dans C:\Bcom_LAN_11.0_4.1_W2K864_A02\Drv).

Après quelques recherches, un dossier nouvellement extrait me parait contenir les fichiers nécessaires à l'installation de mon pilote : C:\Bcom_LAN_11.0_4.1_W2K864_A02\Drv\Program Files 64\Broadcom\BDRVINST.

Pourquoi ? parcequ'il contient un fichier .INF, un .CAT et un .SYS. Fichiers requis pour une installation de pilotes...

L'idée maintenant est d'éditer les fichiers .INF pour vérifier que le device ID que j'ai identifié plus haut fait bien parti de la liste des périphériques supportés par ce pilote :

Je vois tout d'abord que le système d'exploitation supporté est bien celui que je cible :

Et qu'ensuite le device ID de la carte identifiée est bien présent :

Bon, le device ID est partiellement présent... ce qui à priori n'est pas rédibitoire et devrait me laisser serein quand à la validité du pilote.

Une seconde vérification peut être effectuée en cherchant dans ce même fichier .INF la description associée à ce device ID afin de vérifier que cette description correspond à ce que mon script VBS à identifié.

Pour ce faire, je recherche la valeur BCM5750A1 depuis la fin du fichier et je trouve :

Ce qui correspond à ce que mon script a identifié.

Ultime vérification

Lorsque j'ai démarré ma machine sous WinPE, je dois avoir ce résultat lorsque j'exécute ipconfig :

L'idée maintenant est d'installer à chaud le driver que j'ai identifié dans mon instance WinPE pour vérifier que toute ma démarche est correcte.

Je copie donc le répertoire contenant les fichiers d'installation du pilote sur une clé USB que j'introduis dans ma machine (WinPE supportant le Plug and Play, ma clé sera automatiquement reconnue et accessible).

J'exécute alors la commande drvload.exe F:\b57nd60a.inf pour installer le driver dans mon instance WinPE :

Et exécute à nouveau la commande ipconfig.

Si cette fois je vois une connexion avec une adresse IP alors le driver que j'ai identifié est donc le bon !

Je peux donc injecter ce driver dans le Deployment Workbench et faire en sorte qu'il soit intégré à l'image WinPE Lite Touch que je générerait à travers l'update du point de déploiement.

Note : dans le cas où vous ne disposez que du device ID pour identifier un périphérique, le site www.pcidatabase.com peut éventuellement (en fonction de la bonne volonté des personnes qui maintiennent ce site) vous donner quelques indications en ce qui concerne le périphérique lui-même ou son fabricant :

~ Guillaume

Veuillez noter que cette procédure est proposée "telle quelle" sans aucune garantie ni engagement de support. Elle n'engage Microsoft en aucun cas.
Si, cependant, vous considérez ce post flou, incomplet ou inadequat, n'hésitez pas à me le faire savoir !

MDT 2008 Update 1 released

GuillaumeD — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:57:00 GMT

Check it out on Microsoft download : Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 Update 1

Quickly reading the release notes, here are the new features :

Lite Touch OEM-Preload : in this case, MDT 2008 takes the contents of a media deployment point (USB, DVD, and so on) and loads it onto the hard drive, configuring it to automatically start up into Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE). The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) can duplicate this hard drive (or a sector-based image of it), and the drive or image will run through an LTI deployment when it starts up but without generating network traffic for the bits because they are all already present on the hard drive. A new script, LTIOEM.wsf, and a new task sequence template are provided that set up the hard disk for duplication.
System Center Configuration Manager OEM-Preload : in this case, a standard deployment task sequence, ConfigMgr OS MDT 2008, is broken into two parts. The first half (pre), a new task sequence template, applies an operating system image to the hard disk, saves some information about the environment, and marks the hard drive as inactive (so that it doesn’t accidentally start into the new operating system before it is customized). The second half (post), another new task sequence template, must be run using unknown computer support (such as a startup CD or Pre-Boot Execution Environment [PXE] filter). The second task sequence customizes the machine in Windows PE (using the already applied operating system image on disk) and then starts into the operating system to install any needed applications or other customizations. A new ZTIOEM.wsf script has been provided to help with this (to save some task sequence variables from the first task sequence so that they can be used by the second).
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 with SP1 Management Pack for MDT 2008 : monitors the events and performance indicators for LTI deployment, Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) deployment using Systems Management Server, and ZTI deployment with System Center Configuration Manager deployment processes.

There's also bug fixes in this release and revised docs.

Additionally, the Microsoft Word documentation is no longer a part of the download. Whole documentation has been included as a CHM help file.

If you want the documentation as separate files : MDT 2008 Update 1 Guidance.

~ Guillaume

MDT Wizard Editor

GuillaumeD — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:36:00 GMT

Michael Niehaus has released the MDT Wizard Editor on CodePlex.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) Wizard Editor

Copied/pasted from this site :

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) Wizard Editor

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MTD) Wizard Editor is a simple .NET 2.0 application designed to assist with the process of editing the wizard XML manifest files used by the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. While it does not presently help much with the authoring of each wizard pane's content, it does simplify the more tedious parts of editing the XML manifest and the HTML embedded within each wizard pane.

Features available in the current release:

Editing. The Wizard Editor can open an wizard, add and remove panes, change and preview a pane's HTML, and change a pane's settings.
Testing. The Wizard Editor can execute a wizard, simulating the environment in which it would normally be used.

Enjoy !

~ Guillaume

Setting variables through a Task Sequence

GuillaumeD — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:01:00 GMT

For sure , the last post before a long time as I'll flight to South-East Asia next week...

I was at a customer site a week ago and I had the "challenge" of rolling deployment of Windows Server systems with MDT 2008 with as less stuff as possible in the CustomSettings.ini and no database to store configuration (hell !).

Well, that's quite easy in reality.

The goal today is to define the Driver Group involved in the deployment of a particular computer model for a particular OS through a Task Sequence.

Inject drivers and define Driver Groups

This is the first step. You have to inject drivers into the Distribution Share from the Deployment Workbench. You will so be able to install them during a deployment through the Lite Touch process.

I always have three recommendation around drivers and MDT:

Identify THE driver you need for a computer model by retrieving its DeviceID on an installed machine (via Device Manager) then be sure to point to a folder containing ONLY the files for that driver (as far as it is possible to do). Look into the .INF files to find the corresponding DeviceID.
You already realized that when you download a driver package from a manufacturer, there's plenty of devices supported by this same package and billions of files inside it (hey, I joke !).
So just be sure to present to the Workbench the required .CAT, .SYS and .INF for the device you plan to inject (by the way, sometimes, you will have some .DLL required and so on...)
I provide this recommendation because, if you're rigorous with that, you will not have to drill through the Workbench to find the driver you want to consult beyond billions other ones that will never be used...
Create at least a driver group per model/Operating System and give them a name constructed with information that will be queried in the BIOS for the make and model + the identification of the OS (e.g. HP-ProLiant DL380 G5 -WS08-, HP-ProLiant DL380 G5 -WS03- and so on...).
This will let you dynamically identify the adequate driver group to use when deploying this specific model. Read on, this is the purpose of this post !
Create a driver group to be used when building the WinPE image (you have the ability from a Deployment Point properties panel to select a driver group that will be used to retrieve drivers to be injected into WinPE).
This will ensure that when you build you WinPE that not ALL drivers will be injected and thus have a huge WinPE image !
So only include in this group required NIC and mass-storage drivers that are not already present in a default WinPE image.

Note : in the Deployment Point properties panel, in the Windows PE tab, be sure to select the correct driver group you created for WinPE and that you selected system-class drivers as some network card drivers are identified under the system-class and not the NIC class...

Customize the Task Sequence

When you have created the Task Sequence used to deploy the target Operating System, create a new task (type : Set Task Sequence Variable) just after the predefined task Gather local only in the Preinstall section :

Name : Custom – Set Driver Group
Task Sequence Variable : DriverGroup001
Value : %MAKE%-%MODEL% -WS08-

Which will be set to "DriverGroup001 = HP-ProLiant DL380 G5 -WS08-" when Lite Touch will have retrieved BIOS informations.

For Windows Server 2003, you can also use the StorageDriverGroup variable to let Lite Touch manage the installation of mass-storage drivers while performing an unattended installation. Just add the same type of task at the same level of the sequence and use the variable StorageDriverGroup001 and a driver group defined for Windows Server 2003 (e.g. %MAKE%-%MODEL% -WS03-).

You will no more have to use the $OEM$ structure !

~ Guillaume

Note that this post is provided "as is" with no warranty nor supportability engagement. It does not engage Microsoft at all.
Nevertheless if you consider this not clear, incomplete or inadequate, please let me know !

Problèmes de capture avec MDT 2008 et Windows Vista non US

GuillaumeD — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:04:00 GMT

Le problème décrit dans le bulletin de David Sebban fait désormais l'objet d'une fiche technique décrivant la méthode pour corriger ce dysfonctionnement.

Le bulletin de David Sebban

L'article technique : The reference computer does not start Windows PE when you try to perform an image capture operation of a non-U.S. English version of a Windows operating system

~ Guillaume

How to customize the MDT database and... the Workbench

GuillaumeD — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:13:00 GMT

New post for a while, April was quite busy supporting customers... Among several posts I have in draft, this one is quite interesting (from my point of view !) and I wrote it down as soon as I was able to make it works... before I leave for 2 weeks off.

Well, I did not see many people having a customized MDT database that can be provisioned through the Workbench... That's touchy in essence and weird... but we can do it.

As the source code of Microsoft Deployment 2008 has now been publicly released, some of you may want to customize far further the database and provide additional personalization during deployment. This should be possible by using the following step by step.

My first concern was the ability to define static IP addresses when I'm deploying servers. Except by using the Task Sequence and use the predefined task Apply Network Settings (you have to provision with static configuration and not dynamic one), there's no way to do that natively.

My goal was to add the IP Address, the Default Gateway and the Subnet Mask in the database and be able to provision them through the Workbench. Thus I would like to retrieve this information during the deployment and use them to configuration my target machine with...

And last... excuse me if I use some words that do not correspond to the development syntax... I'm not a developer, and I can confirm as one of my teammates helped me a lot around .NET compilation (this guy is really huge !).

Requirements

The requirements are :

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0 (be sure to select the corresponding version for your OS)
Microsoft Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) 1.1
Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit for Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components (Windows Vista SDK)
- Note : During installation, ensure that the 64-bit components are installed if you plan to build executables and assemblies for the x64 platform.
Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005
- Note : During installation, ensure that the 64-bit components are checked (optional by default). The 64-bit components are required if you need to build the executables and assemblies for x64 platform.
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Source Code

You also need to have MDT 2008 installed somewhere...

In Visual Studio 2005

Project signature

As some of the components of the MDT will be rebuild, on some systems the signature of DLL or snapins must be signed. We don't have the original key so we'll create our.

Create a “Keys” folder in the installation folder (e.g. “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Source\Keys”).
Using a “Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt”, navigate to the created directory and execute the command “sn.exe -k Microsoft.BDD.snk”. This will create the strong named key needed for compiling the managed code assembly projects.

Test compilation

Open Visual Studio 2005
Open the project Workbench ("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Source\Workbench\Microsoft.BDD.Workbench.sln")
It should open the Workbench project as well as all dependencies :
From the Build menu, select Rebuild Solution
If there are some errors related to references in the project, look at missing or incorrect references and replace them with the correct DLLs
It should rebuild all DLLs in the folder ..\..\..\..\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager Console\AdminUI\bin\

Add customization

In the project Workbench, open the code for DatabaseDetails.cs and add the following code at the end, after the section SkipBitLockerDetails :

[Category("Wizard Control"), Description("Skip the BitLocker details pane")]
public String SkipBitLockerDetails
{
get
{
    return theRow["SkipBitLockerDetails"].ToString();
}
set
{
    theRow["SkipBitLockerDetails"] = value;
}
}

/// <summary>
/// Custom data
/// </summary>

[Category("TCP/IP Configuration"), Description("TC/IP Address #1")]
public String OSDAdapter0IPAddressList
{
get
{
    return theRow["OSDAdapter0IPAddressList"].ToString();
}
set
{
    theRow["OSDAdapter0IPAddressList"] = value;
}
}

You can add all the custom data you want like described for the OSDAdapter0IPAddressList...
Rebuild the solution.

In Windows Explorer

Copy the following files from the build directory (..\..\..\..\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager Console\AdminUI\bin\) to the MDT installation directory : C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Bin (be sure to have a backup copy of the replaced files):

Microsoft.BDD.Actions.dll
Microsoft.BDD.ConfigManager.dll
Microsoft.BDD.SCCMActions.dll
Microsoft.BDD.Wizards.dll
Microsoft.BDD.Workbench.dll

In the Registry Editor

As we rebuilt the Microsoft.BDD.Workbench.dll, the signature has changed and so the registered SnapIn does not reflect the changes.

Locate HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{FFB8695A-66B4-4929-ABB6-15CB8BD2AE3D} and edit the Type value and replace the strings in bold by the reference of the rebuilt DLL :

Microsoft.BDD.Workbench.PropertySheetSnapIn, Microsoft.BDD.Workbench, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b5c6490be595e62f

You can retrieve the PublicKeyToken with .NET Reflector :

In SQL Server Management Studio

Add the fields you defined in the DatabaseDetails.cs in the dbo.Settings table :
Modify the view dbo.ComputerSettings :

Verify that the new fields are selected and save this view...

In the Workbench

There is nothing to modify in the CustomSettings.ini as the variables OSDAdapter0IPAddressList and so on are already known variables (look at the ZTIGather.xml located in the Scripts folder) but you have to define fake variables in the task Apply Network Settings to make the Lite Touch process identifies the target machine has TCP/IP configuration to set :

You can now add the value through the Workbench :

If you plan to add custom data that are not already represented by a known variable, you will have to add it to the CustomSettings.ini :

[Settings]
Priority=...
Properties=MyCustomData1, MyCustomData2, ...

Isn't that cool ?

But remember that this kind of customization is quite heavy and will require a redo when you will update to next versions of MDT... and this will also not be "fully" supported (as usual, Microsoft Support never leaves you alone and provides "Best Effort" support at least).

Excellent "real life" blog and case study !

GuillaumeD — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:43:00 GMT

During the past weeks, I worked with a customer that implemented a ton of new stuff around deployment and virtualization.

He did a fantastic job and continue to dig into those new Microsoft technologies as you can see on his blog : http://blogs.ethz.ch/jlaville/

Additionally, you can check out the case study :

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000001734

BDD 2007 update 2 released

GuillaumeD — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 10:54:00 GMT

Following the release of Microsoft Deployment 2008, an update for BDD 2007 has also been released.

Download it at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=112440

For those continuing to use this release, I would tell you to look at MDT 2008 as there are a lot of improvements... But it's up to you !

MDT 2008 is here !

GuillaumeD — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:08:00 GMT

The so awaited Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 has been released !

That's huge !

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008

Extract from the Release Notes :

The following list highlights the many new features that have been included in this release of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit:

Deployment Workbench

To better align with System Center Configuration Manager, Deployment Workbench has been modified to create and use task sequences instead of builds.
Support for multiple task sequence templates has been added. Included with this release of MDT are sample templates. Among them are a client template for Windows Vista and Windows XP, a server template for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003, a Replace scenario template, and a custom template that can be used to build task sequences that perform tasks in addition to the deployment of operating systems.

System Center Configuration Manager support, with the following features

MDT 2008 supports System Center Configuration Manager deployments for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.
MDT 2008 functionality is completely integrated into the System Center Configuration Manager server. Deployment Workbench is not used with System Center Configuration Manager operations, except when configuring the Deployment Workbench database (DWDB).
Ability to quick-start System Center Configuration Manager operating system deployments using one wizard to create either operating system packages or operating system installation packages, a Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) package, a System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) package, a customized boot image, or an MDT 2008 custom settings package (using CustomSettings.ini, Unattend.xml, Unattend.txt, or Sysprep.inf).
Manage deployment settings directly in Configuration Manager Console.
Dynamically determine whether user state is backed up locally or to the state management point.
System Center Configuration Manager uses the CustomSettings.ini file and DWDB to determine the list of packages that will be installed on the target computer. When this list of packages is determined, System Center Configuration Manager performs the required installations.
A new wizard for creating the boot image is available on the Boot Images node.

LTI deployment

Deployment team members have the option of configuring disks and network adapters as deployment tasks in LTI deployments.
Functionality has been designed to work like System Center Configuration Manager to ease migration from LTI and Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 to System Center Configuration Manager.
LTI can use Windows Deployment Services multicast transmission when performing LTI deployments of operating system images from Windows Server 2008 servers.
MDT 2008 supports LTI deployment for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista with SP1.
Support to optionally back up the existing drive C on new computers, in addition to support for backing up and reformatting the old computer in Replace scenarios.

Software updates

Support for detecting, downloading, and installing software updates that are available through the Microsoft Updates Web site or intranet servers running Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Web service calls

Web services can be invoked as part of the rules processing performed by MDT 2008, using new rules that can be defined in CustomSettings.ini.

Windows Server roles

Support for the installation and, in some cases, configuration of Windows Server roles. These roles include Active Directory® directory service Domain Services (AD DS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Domain Name Service (DNS), Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services, Windows Deployment Services, and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS).

Package groups

Added PackageGroup functionality. Package groups help separate packages during installation. For instance, when you have multiple operating systems to deploy and they use different packages or require different levels of patches or different languages, you can assign packages to different groups. You then assign the group to a particular operating system during deployment or you can select a package group for a task sequence. A PackageGroup can be assigned using the PackageGroup variable in CustomSettings.ini.

Distribution Share Wizard

The installation and configuration process for MDT 2008 has changed from BDD 2007. In MDT 2008, Windows Installer does not create a distribution share. Team members instead need to use Deployment Workbench to create the distribution share before adding the operating system source, applications, and so on.
There is now support for side-by-side installation of MDT 2008 and BDD 2007 installed on the same computer.
There is now support for upgrading a BDD 2007 distribution share to MDT 2008.

The case of the NVidia SATA controller

GuillaumeD — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:42:00 GMT

Few months ago I had to create a Windows XP SP2 master image with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit for a Dell Optiplex 740 with an onboard NVidia SATA controller.

A way to do that is to use the ability of the MDT to support legacy drivers injection with the well known $OEM$ folder.

Retrieve the correct driver package which is available on the NVidia web site (a newer version may be available) and extract it to a temporary directory
Within the Deployment Workbench, create a new Task Sequence
Within Windows Explorer, go to your Distribution Share directory, in the .\Control\New Task Sequence folder (in my example : BLD_MASTER_XP)
Create here the following directory tree :

Note : the System32 folder is used in some circumstances when DLL files should be copied to this folder during setup
Copy the files displayed in the following screen shot from the driver package (in the IDE\WinXP\legacy folder) to the $OEM$\$1\Drivers\nForce and TEXTMODE folders
Copy the idecoi.dll and nvcoi.dll files in the $OEM$\$$\System32 folder
Add the following lines in the unattend.txt:

Notice the line for the CD-ROM, the driver name has been altered for a French Windows XP here.

More information on the mass storage addition :

HOW TO: Create an Unattended Installation of Third-Party Mass Storage Drivers in Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288344/en-us

To retrieve the correct syntax for the "CD-ROM IDE (ATAPI...) ..." driver for localized Windows XP, look the file txtsetup.sif in the Windows XP CD-ROM, in the i386 folder.

You can retrieve correct syntax for the third party driver in the txtsetup.oem file :
Add the following lines in the same unattend.txt :
Update the OemPnPDriversPath in the sysprep.inf:

That should be all you need.

In the case of having issues (like a BSOD 0x7B :-), remove the sections [MassStorageDrivers] and [OEMBootFiles]. In some circumstances this let the unattended setup runs fine.

If you want to use the same $OEM$ for all your computer models, move the $OEM$ folder under the Distribution Share root folder.

For more information on using the $OEM$ folder with MDT refer to the Workbench_Imaging_Guide.doc.

Note that this procedure is provided "as is" with no warranty nor supportability engagement. It does not engage Microsoft at all.
Nevertheless if you consider this not clear, incomplete or inadequate, please let me know !

Personalize the Task Sequencer progress window

GuillaumeD — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:08:00 GMT

In order to customize the Lite Touch experience, you may have already changed the background of the WinPE Lite Touch image.

Now you may want to get rid of this "IT Organization" company name that does not reflect your environment :

Add the _SMSTSORGNAME property in CustomSettings.ini and BootStrap.ini :

And that's it :

Deliver multiple scenarios with a single deployment point (corrected)

GuillaumeD — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:22:00 GMT

This method originally posted on February 16 has been corrected, please apologize for the first post...

Did you ever think that the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is greedy about disk space ?

You should have noticed that you can deliver only one scenario per specific deployment point as the CustomSettings.ini and the BootStrap.ini applies to all Task Sequences ? This leads to create a deployment point per scenario.

Here is a simple way to deliver multiple scenarios (new computer, refresh, upgrade, replace) through one deployment point with configuration specific to each of them.

If you don't use the database to lead the deployment, you can use the CustomSettings.ini and the BootStrap.ini to respond to all prompts raised during an installation (please refer to the Toolkit_Reference.doc document from the MDT for a detail on all settings you can set).

So for each scenarios you want to offer you may have different settings, for example :

For a new computer, you don't have to backup and restore data
For a refresh scenario, you want to save data locally on the machine before reinstalling the operating system
For a replace scenario, you may want to force data to be saved on the network
And so on...

First step, put all settings for each scenario in the CustomSettings.ini and/or the BootStrap.ini :

Create a section for each scenario (use custom section names to not conflict with existing variables)

Here we have the [RComputer] section (for the Refresh scenario), the [RpComputer] section (for the Replace scenario) and the [UComputer] section (for the Upgrade scenario). The [Default] section is used for New Computer scenario.
Add customization to all sections
Add a new section to parse in the [Settings] section

Here I added MyScenario which will be used later...
Add a new property that will be used to define the targeted scenario :

Now you should say "and now what ?" and you will be right...

At this step you have to specify to Lite Touch which scenario you want to run by specifying an argument to the LiteTouch.wsf script.

For example : wscript.exe LiteTouch.wsf /MyScenario:RComputer

Note : you can use any variable name instead of MyScenario...

In the case of the New Computer scenario, WinPE is set to run LiteTouch.wsf without argument by default, so Lite Touch will parse only the [Default] section...

Isn't that cool ?

If you want to customize different New Computer scenarios, you will have to edit the LiteTouchPE_*.WIM to add the argument to the LiteTouch.wsf execution. This can be done by editing the Unattend.xml answer file located at the root of the image :

If you edit this WinPE image, don't forget that your changes will be lost when you will update the deployment point.

Microsoft Deployment and multicast

GuillaumeD — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:41:00 GMT

Cliquer ici pour une version en Français

You may be aware that Microsoft improved Remote Installation Services (RIS) on Windows Server 2003 by providing a fully manageable component now called Windows Deployment Services (WDS).
You may also know now that Windows Server 2008 brings to WDS support for multicast, something awesome for large deployment that will make you gain time and bandwith !

So, Microsoft Deployment supports multicast. Yes... I'm more and more surprised by the power of what you can do by using all the new deployment tools together (yep, they work together !).

Definitively nothing more easy than adding multicast functionnality to MDT when you understand a bit how it works and here is what you should know to implement it.

First, you should meet the requirements :

Have a box with Windows Server 2008 (for the moment we are at RC1)
Install Windows Deployment Services from the Server Management console (it's a role)
Install the WAIK RC1 for Windows Server 2008

This release contains the wdsmcast.exe which is the tool used to manually "join" a multicast session

Install Microsoft Deployment on this server

You must have at least one operating system injected as a "Full set of source files" in your deployment point or a captured WIM file injected as a "custom image file" with setup files to let a deployment runs fine.

Then, on the deployment point's properties select the option "Enable multicast for this deployment point (requires Windows Server 2008 Windows Deployment Services)".

This option allows the MDT to create a dedicated namespace (or multicast session) in WDS when the deployment point will be updated. This namespace will target the deployment point share and not the WDS share named REMINST.

Well, how it works now when you boot under WinPE ?

You may know that when a Lite Touch scenario is played from a WinPE image, the script LiteTouch.wsf is first called to begin to handle all that stuff you configured through the Deployment Workbench. I will not detail the role and actions of this script but you should know that the MDT uses several scripts to manage the tasks defined by default in Task Sequences.
So, the specific task of applying an operating system (full set of source files or custom WIM image) onto the target computer is handled by the script LTIApply.wsf.

Here we are... As far as I know, the LTIApply.wsf first try to transfer the files through multicast by searching for wdsmcast.exe on known paths. It will be found on the deployment point in .\Tools\x86 (or .\Tools\x64 if you run under a x64 WinPE) and this tool will automatically try to transfer the image by joining the multicast session provided by the WDS server through the custom namespace.

If wdsmcast.exe or a namespace are not found the normal process is executed : ImageX is used to apply the WIM file

At this point, LTIApply.wsf looks for setup files in the deployment point in the path of the Task Sequence of the operating system you're deploying in order to run setup.exe with the unattend.xml associated with the image.
If setup files are not found with the image selected, LTIApply.wsf will look for them in all other Task Sequences' folders present in the deployment point.

So you're done ! The deployment will continue and you have been using multicast as you can see in the WDS MMC console with the percentage of progression of the image transfer !

Note : the release of Windows Server 2008 and the next version of the WAIK are planned to the end of february. If you have access to a TAP, RDP or Beta program, you should be able to download the WAIK.
Windows Server 2008 RC1 is available here.

Note : Windows Deployment Services can be implemented on Windows Server 2003 with the Service Pack 2 or by the Out of the Box update available in the WAIK.