Advice Please

[jertsy]

The sooner you dig into MDT the better. I understand that you're in a time crunch, so do what you have to do, but once you understand the basics of MDT, you'll find that your life has gotten a lot easier. WDS just really augments the deployment options you have via the "work" you put into MDT.

 

I prefer the "thin" image approach nowadays. I used to do a hybrid approach, but I've found that creating, capturing and deploying custom .wim's is time consuming and can lead to inconsistent deployments over time. With the "thin" approach, I simply deploy the unmodified Win7SP1 x64 Enterprise .wim and put all of my "work" into the applications node of MDT. If you can figure out the silent install command to each of the applications you intend to have be part of your standard deployment, then you're 80% of the way there. The rest of the "work" is figuring out how to adjust defaults per application during install (using Orca to generate MSTs mostly) and then using batch files, scripts etc to do cleanup, place shortcuts etc.

 

Once you've put the work in to figure out how to smoothly deploy an application (Java Runtime Environment, MS Office, Adobe Flash, VLC Media Player and so on...) you won't have to put much thought into keeping your deployments current because the method to install say, Adobe Flash for IE version 13 is usually exactly how you'll do version 14... Get a list of apps working in MDT then create an "App Bundle" to deploy them all with one checkbox during Lite Touch.

 

Yes, there's a learning curve, but the payoff is huge.

 

Just my two cents.

 

Nice advice, thanks.

[jertsy]

I agree with @TG_MI that the payoff of learning MDT is huge so when you do get a chance - do it!

 

I would do the "thin" image approach too if I had time. Currently I use the "hybrid" approach. If I wanted to slap an image on say, 4 machines at once, doing the thin option would take far too long having to wait for each application to install. I use an image loaded with the essential software for every room which deploys out much quicker, then use GPO's to install relevant additional programs depending on where the machine will be used i.e. stick 2 in the maths department and 2 in English. Overall this is quicker for me.

 

When trying to silently install software, a great resource is ITninja.com (formly appdeploy.com) a site dedicated to discovering silent install methods.

 

Also worth noting that MDT has built in features for customising MS Office installs too which makes life easier

 

I will check out ITNinja.com, no doubt I will need that in the near future. Thanks.

[jertsy]

Using the 2 books I previously recommended, we have an image that has windows & (customised) MS Office as part of the standard image with applications like, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Air, Shockwave, Java, VLC installed before completion. These applications can then be easily kept up-to-date when new versions are released so you don't have to keep updating the base image. And Windows updates are also applied too via your WSUS server for example.

 

Then you can either install additional applications manually, or via GPO deployment/MSI once you have got to grips and learnt this as @TG_MI previously mentioned.

 

That's kind of what I was thinking, cheers for that MYK-IT.

[mikeyd101]

I have it setup so we have a post OS deployment sequence task, it gives you check boxes of the apps you want to install, click which you want and off it goes. It seems to work ok if you run it by itself, if you try and install OS deployment and post OS deployments together it always seems to fail and I haven't had time to look into it, but no hassle just to re-run the litetouch script again

[themightymrp]

I have a post-deployment task sequence here also, which I use for installing bundles of department specific software in certain circumstances. Such as one bundle of applications for all the Science department software, one for Maths etc.

 

It's a good way of doing it if you don't want to rely on GPO's to install everything. I did have a few issues initially with doing one of these task sequences when I ran into conflicting credentials problems. I sorted it in the end though

[MattDLEA]

Sorry to hijack this thread but am going to have a play with this over summer.

How does MDT WDS differ from SCCM.

 

Assuming I know nothing of each of them and have time to learn is SCCM the way to go or are they all part of the same thing. Im guessing if I use this in anger it will be with a next big deploy so server 2012?

[strawberry]

MDT is a way of creating an image comprised of software packages. WDS is a way of distributing the images, SCCM is the way of automating the process.

 

LEarn MDT

install WDS

Install SCCM and use it to automate and schedule the things your doing with MDT

[Norphy]

WDS is the technology used to deploy images over a network.

 

MDT builds on that and lets you do things like script software deployments, OS updates, settings etc during the build and deployment phase. WDS is a prerequisite for it.

 

SCCM is an entirely different beast. It can do operating system deployment (OSD) in a similar manner to MDT (and you can integrate MDT into it as well) but there is a lot more to it than that. It can be used to deploy software, updates, configuration settings at any point. It can inventory the hardware and software on your systems. It can track the usage of software. It can be used to manage Microsoft's antivirus platform. It has a remote control platform built into it. There are a million and one reports that can be run. And this is just scratching the surface. It is a very powerful product and is not something that should be undertaken lightly. I would strongly recommend getting some training for it, it will make your life a lot easier if you do.