Observations and stuff I find interesting – mostly about System Center
2012-06-10 Leave a comment
In a previous post I told you about an exciting new feature of MDT 2012 – the ability to integrate Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit. In this post, for those of you who haven’t used this feature before, I’ll show you how to enable it. Read more of this post
2012-06-09 Leave a comment
One of the coolest new features in MDT 2012 is the ability to integrate Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) 7 into the Lite Touch boot images generated on your MDT Deployment share. If you haven’t seen DaRT, it is part of the The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), a suite of technologies available as a subscription for Software Assurance customers. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/products-and-technologies/mdop/default.aspx.
2011-04-19 Leave a comment
Windows 7 deployment seems to the the hot topic these days. If you are responsible for planning and rolling out Windows 7, then this is a course you really should consider taking. This five-day instructor-led course is intended for desktop administrators who specialize in desktop deployment, configuration, and management . It is a great course for those interested in OS deployment.
2011-04-19 Leave a comment
I find that one the the most common areas where clients tend to have questions – both in the classroom and when working at client sites – is related to automating the deployment of Windows 7. Everyone has questions about WAIK, MDT, and SCCM integration. Read more of this post
2011-03-05 Leave a comment
A new hotfix for USMT 4.0 was released in February. You should care if you are using USMT to migrate user settings and data to computers running Office 2010, or if you are using USMT 4.0 and SCCM to migrate user settings and data from Windows XP computers. Check out Michael Niehaus’ post USMT 4.0 Support for Office 2010 for more information.
2010-10-22 Leave a comment
It was a bit tough to wrap my head around the whole concept of hard link migration in USMT. In the past, if I wanted to re-image a user’s machine, I needed to safeguard all the user’s precious data first. I might store their documents on a network server, or removable storage. Once I’d done that, I would rebuild their machine, and then restore the user data from it’s temporary vault. Problem was, all this data transfer took time. If the user had a lot of local data, it could take a very long time. Read more of this post
2010-10-01 Leave a comment
WIM2VHD is a tool that will create a bootable VHD from a Windows 7 or 2008 R2 WIM image without having to run Windows Setup. Read more of this post
2010-08-23 Leave a comment
Was reading a great how-to article today on Steve Rachui’s Manageability blog. It’s a sample proof of concept only, you would have to tweak it to work the way you want it to, but it has some great potential. Why would you want to drive imaging from the command line? One compelling reason – you don’t want the team responsible for delivering image to have access to the SCCM Console. Users could visit a web page to have an OSD image delivered. Very cool!
You’ll find the whole article at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/steverac/archive/2010/08/23/os-imaging-via-web-page.aspx.
2010-04-23 Leave a comment
Mitch Tulloch, MVP and lead author of the Windows 7 Resource Kit, has written an excellent series on how to deploy Windows 7 using MDT. If you are new to deploying Windows Vista or Windows 7 OS, you will find that a lot has changed since Windows XP, and this is one of the best all-in-one tutorials I’ve found. If you are using SCCM to deploy your operating systems, MDT can be integrated into the Configuration Manager console, to expose functionality not available in SCCM alone. I’d definitely recommend checking the series, starting with Part 1 at http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Deploying-Windows-7-Part1.html
2010-04-18 Leave a comment
Troubleshooting Configuration Manager task sequences can be challenging. Here are some of the things I have found helpful when things go wrong with Operating System Deployment in Configuration Manager. Read more of this post
Configuration Manager Team Blog
Yet Another System Center Blog 