MDT Capture Image

[Davit2005]

I have only ever done automated builds in MDT, specifying the applications with their relevant switches etc then getting the image captured at the end. This was up to a 4-5 years back when a change of career direction in IT moved me away from that responsibility.

 

Wanting to keep the knowledge up with Servers, Deployment, Office 365, AD, Group Policy, VMWare etc I have an extensive home lab which I run like production, i.e. it is 24/7 with AD, Azure Sync to Microsoft 365, AD authenticated shares, etc. etc.

 

Few years back I had setup MDT as it had been setup at work i.e. automated, specific role account with permission to add the PCs to specific OU in the domain, etc. The one thing I did not do in the home lab was getting WSUS installed for updates as I could not be that bothered. I do use MDT to deploy virtual servers as well as desktops to Virtual and physical machines (where possible).

 

I wanted to be able to make some final changes then capture the image afterwards i.e removing bloatware, installing updates and removing more bloatware. So after some tinkering I can make the changes necessary in the Deployment rules to be able to get the option to capture images but when I do this but want to deploy images instead I then have to enter all the details again for the OU and the account that joins machines to the domain as they are blank. I am aware of the sysprep limit but with a Build > sysprep > modify > sysprep I am within the the sysprep limit.

 

So does anyone know how I can have the possibility to capture but without needing to enter all the details again for deployment???

 

Here are the changes in the rules to get the capture option, it was the commenting out of the OSInstall=Y that made the difference as well as seemingly the following 2 lines after.

 

[Default]

[OSInstall=Y]

SkipCapture=NO

DoCapture=YES

 

I have seen some youtube videos for removing all the MS bloatware and creating a custom WIM file which I could use as a basis for the Build image as another possibilities but I still need to deal with the updates.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Davit2005

[caffrey]

You can add updates to the wim too if requried , I can't remember the last time I captured an image. All my images are now thin with application installation during the task sequence. In the days when I did capture - I just ran litetouch from the MDT share and ran a catpure task sequence

[computer_expert]

Pop these into customsettings.ini

 

JoinDomain=youraddomainname.co.uk
DomainAdmin=ServiceAccount
DomainAdminDomain=youraddomainname.co.uk
DomainAdminPassword=P@$$WoRD
MachineObjectOU=OU=yourouname,OU=computers,DC=youraddomainname,DC=co,DC=uk

 

This should stop you from having to populate the domain join details during the deployment wizard.

 

As for WSUS, Windows 10 2004 and newer now combine the SSU and the CU as one update (this was only a recent change within the last month or 2) and you can point the machine towards WSUS by using the following in customsettings:

 

wsusserver=https://server.domain.lan:8531

If not using SSL then use port 8530 instead if that's what your wsus server uses.

 

 

I moved away from sysprep during the windows 7 days and started using OSDbuilder to customise the WIM (remove apps, install latest patches etc) before deployment. There's another tool similar to OSDBuilder called WIMWitch (that has a UI) that seems to get good reviews but I've never used.

Edited February 12, 2021 by computer_expert

[Davit2005]

Pop these into customsettings.ini

 

JoinDomain=youraddomainname.co.uk
DomainAdmin=ServiceAccount
DomainAdminDomain=youraddomainname.co.uk
DomainAdminPassword=P@$$WoRD
MachineObjectOU=OU=yourouname,OU=computers,DC=youraddomainname,DC=co,DC=uk

 

This should stop you from having to populate the domain join details during the deployment wizard.

 

As for WSUS, Windows 10 2004 and newer now combine the SSU and the CU as one update (this was only a recent change within the last month or 2) and you can point the machine towards WSUS by using the following in customsettings:

 

wsusserver=https://server.domain.lan:8531

If not using SSL then use port 8530 instead if that's what your wsus server uses.

 

 

I moved away from sysprep during the windows 7 days and started using OSDbuilder to customise the WIM (remove apps, install latest patches etc) before deployment. There's another tool similar to OSDBuilder called WIMWitch (that has a UI) that seems to get good reviews but I've never used.

 

Yeah I have the details in there to join domain and put in specific OU which works but it seems since making the other 3 changes the boxes are now blank in the deployment wizard. I can just revert the changes in the rules to fix it, just a pain.

 

Didn't want to go down the route of setting up WSUS I know how much pain that can be, lol.

 

It appears the image does not want to capture now since doing the updates, I just have a windows.old folder in the root of the C drive. I will test some more over weekend, I got out of that responsibility just before my previous place rolled out Win10, lol. But I have been using my MDT server with Windows 10, and Server 2012/2016 no problem.