Sam_Brown Posted August 17, 2014 Posted August 17, 2014 I've moved from WDS to using SCCM for our OS deployment and completely skipped MDT. I've heard that MDT offers a lot of decent features and functionality that SCCM OSD is lacking and it's possible to integrate MDT into SCCM. Would anyone be kind enough to let me know what the benefits of doing so would be over the bog standard SCCM way of doing things? I've found it fairly painless to use SCCM to re-image machines and it obviously has a lot more about it than WDS. But if I'm missing out on some cool features than MDT can bring to the table I'd love to know more about them!
jaminben Posted August 17, 2014 Posted August 17, 2014 I don't think your missing out on much apart from the ability to add a few extra items to your task sequences whether that be capture or deployment. I use both but keep them separate.... MDT to create our images and SCCM to deploy them.
Sam_Brown Posted August 17, 2014 Author Posted August 17, 2014 I don't think your missing out on much apart from the ability to add a few extra items to your task sequences whether that be capture or deployment. I use both but keep them separate.... MDT to create our images and SCCM to deploy them. How does MDT help with capturing? I have to admit since moving to SCCM I've always imaged with the standard install.wim from the Windows 7 DVD. Did try and make a master image once but it kept on causing issues with the Config Manager client when I tried pushing it out and never figured it out so kept with the default image instead due to time constraints at the time.
jaminben Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Off the top of my head I can't remember what it adds to the capture sequences but if your looking to create an automated reference image (.wim) then MDT is what you want (IMO). It'll take a little getting used to but it's more or less the same as creating an SCCM task sequence... for instance a task sequence might look like: install OS > run updates > install programs > run updates again > run custom powershell commands > run custom cmd commands > create .wim And that's all automated so you don't have to touch it at any point. If you want to include another piece of software later down the line you just add it to the install programs task and run it again and you'll have another new .wim.
Sam_Brown Posted August 18, 2014 Author Posted August 18, 2014 So these days there's no way to create your own image from scratch manually and capture it? It has to be through a TS?
jaminben Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 I guess you can still use older methods but thats before my time so wouldn't know about those. 1
Sam_Brown Posted August 18, 2014 Author Posted August 18, 2014 I guess you can still use older methods but thats before my time so wouldn't know about those. LMAO! Now that makes me feel f***ing old! I just mean through installing Windows and the apps by hand and syspreping it and capturing it. Would be useful for a lot of those annoying little older apps that are a pain to package up.
jaminben Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 (edited) LMAO! Now that makes me feel f***ing old! I just mean through installing Windows and the apps by hand and syspreping it and capturing it. Would be useful for a lot of those annoying little older apps that are a pain to package up. I'm probably as old or older than you... just new to IT You can "Pause" the TS to manually install any older programs that are a pain to install. I also tend to use VM's to build the images so they are driver agnostic and you can snapshot the VM for quicker testing / turnarounds of builds. Edited August 18, 2014 by jaminben
jaminben Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Best thing to do is do a search for "mdt johan arwidmark" on YouTube and watch some of his videos for creating reference images. 1
free780 Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 If you customise your default profile. You really need MDT. You can do things like steal the windows update script from MDT to use in sccm ts. You can also do UDI but its probably not the best idea. 1
free780 Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 User driven installation. You get a pretty wizard you can customise. 1
d4rkcell Posted September 7, 2014 Posted September 7, 2014 (edited) I use MDT to drive the task sequences from SCCM using UDI e.g. select domain OU to join and software to install as well as other stuff like computer description and hostname. I also build and capture my own custom wim file "old school" by building it on a VM. sysprepping it without an answer file. booting to a PE boot disk, identifying the OS partition using DISKPART followed by LIST VOLUME and then using DISM with this command: dism /capture-image /imagefile:F:\wim.wim /capturedir:D:\ /name:"my custom wim" /compress:maximum The above method of capturing also works well for Windows 8/8.1 and Vista (if you need to deploy vista!) This captures the sysprepped image. This yields a wim file called wim.wim which can be deployed though SCCM the same as the default install.wim from windows DVD. its handy to include windows updates and common apps. The old argument of fat vs thin springs to mind. Personally i prefer this hybrid approach. if you want to know more about UDI check this out Learning MDT 2012’s User-Driven Installation (UDI) - Chris's Blog - Just weedin around Microsoft - Site Home - TechNet Blogs also google has a tonne of resources on the subject. I personally never liked SCCM build and capture. I guess i'm just paranoid! Edited September 7, 2014 by d4rkcell Typos and formatting 1
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