Cloud Only Windows Mass Deployment

[DalekSec]

Afternoon,

 

We're after a quicker way to image 10+ laptops at a time, in the past jobs i've used SCCM etc, but here we have no onsite servers or onsite AD etc so SCCM is out straight away. Currently we are doing USB installs for each.

 

Ideally i just want someone to push the Windows image out via PXE and install blank windows and we can then run the scripts as needed to onboard to Azure, i just tried WDS/MDT but was unaware that Windows 11 is blocked like this...

 

Does anyone know the easiest way to do this?

[itskdog]

OSDCloud would be my usual recommendation, but they seem to be undergoing a major overhaul and rebrand, so there's no updated documentation yet.

 

That can be loaded as an image to your PXE server, or added to a USB stick to boot from.

 

Alternatively there's the FFUBuilder tool on GitHub that can create a custom image for deployment.

[psydii]

Push? Don't know. But a  USB3 thumb drive install of base windows 11 is pretty quick, and Windows Configuration designer lets you make a few basic tweaks so you can jump (more or less) straight into the autopilot workflow.  I think you only need the USB in the machine until the copying files phase is complete  (or the  OOBE experience has started if using a WCD profile). 

We just have a bunch of them. It's quite a lot quicker than using SCCM  PXE to pull the OS over the LAN.

(It makes me sad though, I've been doing network installs since '95, and remember when unattend.txt was new.)

[Ratcliffepg]

We put an old M2 ssd in a caddy very quick !

[DalekSec]

Cheers all still fighting with WDS/MDT as i have got it booting now but the drivers are being a PITA, if no luck will try OSDCloud

[Jaan]

PDQ Smart deploy?

 

https://www.smartdeploy.com/

[DalekSec]

1 hour ago, Jaan said:

PDQ Smart deploy?

 

https://www.smartdeploy.com/

 

Costs money, its not something we do a lot probably once every 2 months. Just want a server (in this case a workstation with a SFP+ PCIe Card!) i can switch on when we do the builds