What next?!

[Tech13]

The knowledge of all the IT Folk in education, where budgets and time are squeezed!

 

What are people doing for OS Deployment? - we currently use MDT for Win 10 but know that Win 11 is no longer supported.

 

Before we invest lots of time into MCM are there viable alternatives?

 

Thanks as always!

[3s-gtech]

Carrying on with MDT is a viable option. I'd put money on it working for a good while yet (it certainly works with 11 24H2, and we jumped straight from 10 22H2).

[dhicks]

What are people doing for OS Deployment?

 

For our relativly small set of Windows machines (70 or so, I think now), on our single quite compact site, we simply installed from a bootable USB stick (made using Ventoy) automated with a standard unattend.xml file. That installs the base Windows 11 and the Action 1 client, everything else (updates, more software) can be rolled out from there.

[Jaan]

We use FOG here......... just started to deploy windows 11 with it.... Thin image, the we use PDQ to do a post deployment software install.... PDQ also do "SmartDeploy" which does reimaging and ties everything together..... however i've not had time or a trial of smartdeploy yet.

 

PDQ deploy and inventory is epic. best thing i've ever had bought for me

[mavhc]

I still use wds for deploying win11, just use the win10 boot, then gpo installs choco and that installs apps

[jthompson]

Still using MDT, which we're currently using to deploy Win11 24H2 with Office and the latest monthly update applied (we run an automated build & capture after each patch Tuesday).

 

I've spent a while of late working on MCM so as to be able to replicate what we're currently doing with MDT. It's a beast but I'm nearly there and have been diligently writing up the procedure, which I plan to share on here at some point. I'd rather have moved to MCM before MDT stops working with the latest Windows release.

[Tech13]

Thank you for the comments so far! Keep them coming...

 

Yes we are on the same line of thought - it will stop working eventually so we want to be ahead of the curve!

[Oaktech]

We were using SCCM, but as we are now entirely cloud based we use Windows Config Designer and InTune and we have about 30 sticks with all the config profiles on them so we can bulk image.

[PotNoodleTech]

Still using MDT and WDS here to deploy W11 (and some W10) images, I see no reason to change until forced as it just works so good, fast and relaibily and frankly nothing modern looks like an imprvement and just looks like far more work to set up and run.

[harold_dawg]

I use Smart Deploy. They were bought out recently by PDQ deploy. I create the images in HyperV and then capture it using Smart Deploy. In Smart Deploy you create the answer file and download the device driver packages. I then upload the wim boot file to WDS and PXE boot. You can also install a client on the machine and use wake on LAN to schedule the imaging.

[thimon]

PDQ deploy and inventory is epic. best thing i've ever had bought for me

 

I’ve moved over to PDQ Connect, equally awesome. Much more reliable imo, Deploy was forever plagued by DNS issues no matter what I did.

[Jaan]

I’ve moved over to PDQ Connect, equally awesome. Much more reliable imo, Deploy was forever plagued by DNS issues no matter what I did.

 

is connect a replacement to inventory and deploy or works alongside it? i'm a little confused.

[thimon]

is connect a replacement to inventory and deploy or works alongside it? i'm a little confused.

 

It’s a replacement for both. Instead of connecting over the network, it uses an agent on the device. No more DNS / network issues for us! Because it uses an agent it allows you to manage devices offsite. We had a staff member in Hong Kong the other day who we could help because of it.

[I_just_work_here]

We use a combination of USB Drives and WDS (using Windows 10 boot image to get Windows 11 images to work), and we use NTLite to create the unattend file for us.

[synaesthesia]

Some of these answers feel like going back in time. Just waiting for someone to show off their FOG setup! I feel like MDT is old fashioned but it's easy, zero/lite touch and configurable... the thought of brandishing USB drives is just insane

[machy]

Some of these answers feel like going back in time. Just waiting for someone to show off their FOG setup! I feel like MDT is old fashioned but it's easy, zero/lite touch and configurable... the thought of brandishing USB drives is just insane

 

I'd loose my mind if i had to do a class' worth devices using USB drives, never mind a sites worth.

 

Love MDT, set and forget is really useful lol

[jthompson]

Some of these answers feel like going back in time. Just waiting for someone to show off their FOG setup! I feel like MDT is old fashioned but it's easy, zero/lite touch and configurable... the thought of brandishing USB drives is just insane

 

Glad I'm not the only one so surprised about USB install media being used so much. I like having clients being up to date with their monthlies straight out of the gate (i.e. the deployment image itself being kept up to date), without having a chance to muddy my compliance stats.

 

When I first started in this line of work, we were using Norton Ghost with a golden image spread across about 5 CDs. I thought it was very clever that we could have a production line of up to 5 computers being imaged at the same time with only one set of discs!

[Olliedawg]

I still use MDT / WDS - works perfectly for us, will be running it into the ground!

[jthompson]

I still use MDT / WDS - works perfectly for us, will be running it into the ground!

 

I think we will too, but I'm planning on jumping out and doing a cool superhero landing in the moments before MDT thumps itself into the ground behind me (tldr: I'm prepping MCM).

[PotNoodleTech]

Us using MDT to the bitter end

 

[MrEprise]

Some of these answers feel like going back in time. Just waiting for someone to show off their FOG setup! I feel like MDT is old fashioned but it's easy, zero/lite touch and configurable... the thought of brandishing USB drives is just insane

 

I think you missed the post from @Jaan earlier in the thread.

 

We use FOG here......... just started to deploy windows 11 with it.... Thin image, the we use PDQ to do a post deployment software install.... PDQ also do "SmartDeploy" which does reimaging and ties everything together..... however i've not had time or a trial of smartdeploy yet.

 

PDQ deploy and inventory is epic. best thing i've ever had bought for me

[Jaan]

Yeah we just dump a sysprep'd empty image via fog...... work great for us

[ITGuyNW]

It’s a replacement for both. Instead of connecting over the network, it uses an agent on the device. No more DNS / network issues for us! Because it uses an agent it allows you to manage devices offsite. We had a staff member in Hong Kong the other day who we could help because of it.

 

How do costs compare? When I looked, it was an astronomical leap

[thimon]

I was an early adopter, so get their Pro tier for around $11 per device per year. Had my technician count reduced by one this year so it’s been a real help! Edited November 15, 2024 by thimon

[mavhc]

The actual future MS wants is to not image your new devices, and pay them every month for every device for intune, have a user login with their corporate MSA and reconfigure the laptop on the fly

 

Are people using usb boot drives because their laptops don't have ethernet? did you switch from network boot to usb? or never had network boot?

 

I've only reimaged about 1% of our devices after the first reimage when they're new, a Windows install lasts longer than the hardware these days