If you tried to integrate MDT with a new installs of ConfigMgr 2103 or later you probably learned that the MDT console extension won't show by default, even after running the Configure ConfigMgr Integration wizard. This is because of a security change Microsoft did for console extensions. To allow for the MDT extensions, open your […]

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TL;DR For use MDT Lite Touch to support Windows 11 upgrades you need to add the /eula accept parameter to setup. That's easily done by using the WindowsUpgradeAdditionalOptions task sequence variable in MDT. Continue to read for more details… Background If you try to use MDT Lite Touch to upgrade a Windows 10 machine to […]

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Here is a quick example for using PowerShell to make changes in offline registry in a ConfigMgr task sequence. If using a different deployment solution simply replace the logic to locate the offline image.

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The rules engine in MDT is one of the most powerful ways of applying settings during OS Deployment. It uses INI files that it parses and converts to task sequence variables. For example, this morning I was tagged in a Tweet where a fellow deployment geek was asking about how to name computers based on […]

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For most Home labs you typically want to use a workstation or server with lots of disk and memory. But if you just want a simple lab, that is accessible from anywhere in the world, Azure Labs can be a good option. Obviously running a lab full time in Azure is going to be quite […]

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Are you enrolling lots of machines into Windows Autopilot and want to speed up the process? Or, do you simply want to speed up application deployment from Intune? Well, Microsoft Connected Cache (MCC) is here to the rescue. When it comes to MCC, at least for now, you have to use the on-premises version that […]

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Thanks to all of you that joined our last FWSMUG user group meeting for 2021, and an extra thank you to Aria, Mike, Max, and Michael for presenting at the event. Below you find links to the slides and the recordings. The sessions were: Windows 11 – How to Get It and How to Manage […]

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Here is a quick guide to configure a workgroup server with PXE for MDT Lite Touch (or any other deployment solution based on WinPE). In this example I'm using a Windows Server 2019 server named MDT01 configured for being in a workgroup, and the PXE server is Windows Deployment Services (WDS). Prerequisites For this guide […]

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For the past decade or so, MDT Lite Touch have had a little know feature called Exits (or UpdateExit), which is called every time you do a full update of the deployment share. The feature was added back in MDT 2010, and was originally documented by Michael Niehaus (@mniehaus) here: MDT 2010 New Feature #17: […]

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Cloud OS Deployment, or Cloud Imaging, allows you to deploy machines without any local infrastructure other than Internet access. It can for example be used to: Image devices from directly home Image from a remote office without overloading the VPN connection, or even without having a VPN connection. Rebuild an entire infrastructure after a ransomware […]

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In my lab I use virtual machines a lot, and not surprisingly, sometimes I need to move around Hyper-V VMs to either a new disk volume, or just to a new folder on the same volume, because of disk space. Either way, with PowerShell that is a quite easy task. Here are a few examples: […]

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Here is a short PowerShell snippet for renaming a domain joined computer using PowerShell. It can be run both locally, and remote.

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While some SMB Compression code has been in Windows 10 for a while, it was not until Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 it was implemented end to end. Anyway, that just had to be tested, so I quickly deployed a few Windows 11 machines and started doing some benchmarking. In this test I'm using […]

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This week I needed to access the MDT Database via HTTPS for a cloud imaging implementation. The task at hand was to retrieve the computer name from the database by sending the computers serial number to it, but this technique can be used to read or write any settings in the database. This could have […]

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My good friend Mikael Nystrom recently posted a guide on how to setup the RestPS PowerShell Framework to run as as service via NSSM – the Non-Sucking Service Manager. In case you missed that post, you can find it here: Nice to Know – Running RestPS as a Service. Anyway, the default configuration of RestPS is […]

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Here are the slides from the Back to Basics – Windows 10 / 11 Setup Internals session that Michael Niehaus and me presented on July 22 for the FWSMUG user group. If you missed the event, you can see the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5PJLZ_WLOY Download slides: FWSMUG_07_2021_Back_to_Basics_Windows_10_and_Windows_11_Setup_Internals_Final.pptx Blast from the past Funny enough, I got a […]

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One of the students attending the ViaMonstra Online Academy reached out and asked for a spec of the lab I used for most of my demos. Well, look no further. here it is: The Machines My main research lab for the Arwidmark's consists of two HP Z840, and six Dell OptiPlex 7040 machines. Don't mind […]

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Every now and then a customer will just blurt out a statement that either blows my mind, or makes me laugh out loud. In this case, it was a ConfigMgr customer up in Canada that accomplished both 🙂 "I understand very fast as long as you explain it for a very long time" / Johan

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I'm a big fan of the Run Script feature in ConfigMgr, since it allows me to run a PowerShell script on any ConfigMgr client without having to worry about remote PowerShell being enabled, or having any special permissions on the target machine itself. Here is an example on how to invoke a run script via […]

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While more and more organizations are leaving the MDT integration in ConfigMgr behind – In favor of PowerShell driven community solutions, or by developing their own custom PowerShell scripts – There are still ConfigMgr environments using the integration. While the default MDT package that is created by the MDT console extensions for ConfigMgr is working […]

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