[mdt] So I hear MDT is better .. anyone got any howtos that they've found useful?

[soveryapt]

The subject says it all really ..

 

I've got WDS Working, which for the mean time will do me as I'm getting the images done round the school and things are starting to work nicely, however, I hear that MDT is the better way to go for deployment and all that jazz, so I wondered if anyone could point to towards any good howtos they've found useful when setting up an MDT Server alongside WDS.

 

I think it will be more for the Application Deployment that I will make use of it, but, any good howtos will be welcomed!

 

Thanks all

Andy

[ChrisH]

You use MDT and WAIK to make all your images and tasks to install apps. It is an easy way to inject drivers and windows updates etc. You then use these images with WDS. There is plenty of stuff in the Microsoft site and there are some good videos on youtube to get you started. You should be concentrating on the litetouch stuff unless you are using SCCM, where you can use zero touch.

[teejay]

We looked at MDT and also SCCM and tbh for us we found that once we'd got it working properly wds on it's own works best. App deployment through MDT didn't seem to work that well, we find Group Policy deployment works best or if it's an application that's a pain to install through msi we manually install into the base image.

[GAS]

Hi,

Have look this link Windows 7 Deployment Event | Education Technology Now download the pdf and print off worked excelent for us and thank you to Mr A Richards @ West Hatch High School

also check his blog post Education Technology Now and YouTube - ‪Kanal von arichardsSaruk‬‎

 

Thanks

GAS

[john]

I can HIGHLY recommend this book - Amazon.com: Deployment Fundamentals: Deploying Windows clients using MDT 2010 Lite Touch (Volume 1) (9781451570038): Johan Arwidmark, Mikael Nyström: Books its well worth importing from the US. Its the only resource ive used to setup MDT at work and in as little as half a day I've got it all working, drives injecting to the builds, software deploying and captured images, it even lets me name each PC when you PXE boot it, doesn't fall over with card readers and ensures machines are Bitlocker ready what more could you possible want.

 

A very useful book and well worth the cost. Took about 12 days for mine to arrive from the US.

[soveryapt]

I can HIGHLY recommend this book - Amazon.com: Deployment Fundamentals: Deploying Windows clients using MDT 2010 Lite Touch (Volume 1) (9781451570038): Johan Arwidmark, Mikael Nyström: Books its well worth importing from the US. Its the only resource ive used to setup MDT at work and in as little as half a day I've got it all working, drives injecting to the builds, software deploying and captured images, it even lets me name each PC when you PXE boot it, doesn't fall over with card readers and ensures machines are Bitlocker ready what more could you possible want.

 

A very useful book and well worth the cost. Took about 12 days for mine to arrive from the US.

 

Might look at that some other time then, as I've only got 12 days left of the school being open to sort it! lol .. Thanks tho

[aerospacemango]

We looked at MDT and also SCCM and tbh for us we found that once we'd got it working properly wds on it's own works best. App deployment through MDT didn't seem to work that well, we find Group Policy deployment works best or if it's an application that's a pain to install through msi we manually install into the base image.

 

 

This is pretty much true for me. I've looked at MDT, but have had no problems with WDS, and making the builds do what we want.

 

We have different builds for different uses, and these are shown through the WDS console. Therefore, I've kinda stepped away from MDT/SCCM for the moment.

[soveryapt]

This is pretty much true for me. I've looked at MDT, but have had no problems with WDS, and making the builds do what we want.

 

We have different builds for different uses, and these are shown through the WDS console. Therefore, I've kinda stepped away from MDT/SCCM for the moment.

 

Yeah, think as I've got it working I'm going to go with WDS for the time being .. MDT just seemed like a good way of being able to do extra stuff ..

 

I think WDS for me for now with a custom image for the computers that have special non deployable via GPO software (CrazyTalk 5 being one such) with the rest having their software deployed through GPO as I used to ..

 

Thanks again all ..

[aerospacemango]

Yeah, think as I've got it working I'm going to go with WDS for the time being .. MDT just seemed like a good way of being able to do extra stuff ..

 

I think WDS for me for now with a custom image for the computers that have special non deployable via GPO software (CrazyTalk 5 being one such) with the rest having their software deployed through GPO as I used to ..

 

Thanks again all ..

 

Even though we have a campus with 500+ machines, I kinda made that decision as there was no guarantee that we could get MDT running how we wanted, before we needed to do large scale re-builds.

 

WDS does a room of 20, at a time, and all we need to do is push the Sophos installer through SCE, and it's pretty much ready.

[arichards]

Hi

 

I know its already been mentioned but you can download a quick help guide from my blog if you want. Its a 'how we did it' type of thing. You can get it from here:

 

Windows 7 Deployment Event | Education Technology Now

 

If you have any questions then don't hesitate to drop me a line.

 

Alan

[gotenks1321]

Deploying Windows 7 - Part 1: Windows AIK 2.0 Enhancements is pretty much what I used to get MDT 2010 up and running.