[mdt] MDT Task Sequence - What default steps can be removed to make the process quicker?

[woreilly]

Hi, I am using MDT 2012 on a 2008R2 Server. Have been trying to build a laptop via a Task Sequence that I havent tweaked in any way since I created it a long time ago and it is still building a week later (admittedly I am only at the school half a day per week). It was takings its time installing Windows Updates so I have removed the two steps from the Task Sequence. Are there any other steps that get added in as standard that I can remove to speed up the deployment process?

[sted]

depends what you want you can set it to skip pretty much every screen i generally leave name computer region to double check and apps thats about it

[woreilly]

Oh as a rule we (my colleagues and I) skip everything but the machine name and any optional applications to install such as office or SIMS or sophos (our anti-virus). I'm on about the individual steps within the task sequence properties in the Deployment Workbench, not the unattend.xml or bootstrap.ini files!

[free780]

Are you pointing mdt to your internal wsus?

[themightymrp]

A week is a bit much!! I have the Windows Updates pointing to our internal WSUS and even with a complete deploy running it finishes in less than 3 hours

[woreilly]

A week is a bit much!! I have the Windows Updates pointing to our internal WSUS and even with a complete deploy running it finishes in less than 3 hours

 

I suspect that since I had made the network top of the boot order (before i googled how to enable the boot options menu on the said laptop), when it restarted, someone clicked yes to starting a new deployment and it had been restarted, hence the belief it was still going a week later. I ended up having to completely restart the deployment and have changed HDD back to the top of the order so it seems to be all fine now, and I've also removed the Windows Update steps from the task sequence so that WSUS can push out the updates when its done and I don't have to be there to supervise it!

[themightymrp]

Fair enough. Don't you have a section which prompts for admin credentials before a deployment begins? If not, its SO worth having!

[woreilly]

I don't...admittedly, all but 2 of the schools I look after are First & Primary schools where there is a decent level of competency not to go playing around rebuilding machines - a lot of staff wouldn't have the first clue - admittedly, although I have never had an issue with it, it might be worth putting the request for admin credentials before deployment begins in one of my Middle Schools which has a large number of 10-13 year olds who are cheeky enough to try it!

[themightymrp]

I can't remember off the top of my head how I did it now But I know that if they don't enter an admin username and password it just kicks them out of the deploy. I'm fairly sure it was simple to do though

[sted]

I can't remember off the top of my head how I did it now But I know that if they don't enter an admin username and password it just kicks them out of the deploy. I'm fairly sure it was simple to do though

 

by default it does ask for passwords its only if you add passwords to boot.ini it sails straight into the what do you want to do type questions

[themightymrp]

That could be it I did something with regards the NTFS or share permissions to so that even if a student/teacher supplies a valid domain logon, they don't have permission to the setup files.