Intune and Existing Devices

[IanT]

I've been experimenting with Intune and onboarding devices, and we have a few hundred existing Windows 11-compliant machines that we're planning to AutoPilot over the summer. I'm curious, how do you typically handle imaging for existing devices? Do you wipe them with a vanilla Windows 11 OS and then run the AutoPilot scripts, or take a different approach?

[mjhardisty]

Vanilla Windows 11 OS, Autopilot script, Autopilot branding, ESP for exisiting devices.

[ITGuyNW]

This guy is great for autopilot stuff

 

 

[buzzard]

19 hours ago, IanT said:

I've been experimenting with Intune and onboarding devices, and we have a few hundred existing Windows 11-compliant machines that we're planning to AutoPilot over the summer. I'm curious, how do you typically handle imaging for existing devices? Do you wipe them with a vanilla Windows 11 OS and then run the AutoPilot scripts, or take a different approach?

If these are existing domain machines, I'd rebuild. For this I prefer to use MDT and have a task sequence that flattens them, cleans up the vanilla system and preloads some of the apps using PSADK (which is what we use in Intune) so it speeds up the builds. I waste too much time waiting for apps to install from the cloud so prefer to have tighter control over the process. Using the autopilot and ESPs to manage it once its rolling is fairly straightforward and well documented. I did have a TS in MDT that fired off an onboarding PS script which initiated the process but I never got around to finishing it properly!

[IanT]

Yeah, that’s exactly my thinking too, using MDT with a TS for the latest Windows 11 build.
 

I’m getting seriously fed up with waiting around for apps to come down from the cloud. Even with forced syncs and ESP tweaks, you’re still at the mercy of Microsoft’s timing. I’d much rather preload the core apps in the image via MDT, that way I’ve got more control over the process and can actually get machines ready in a sensible timeframe.
 

Autopilot’s great once it’s rolling, but for existing domain devices it just feels too sluggish without a bit of prep work up front.