On January 6, 2026, Microsoft retired MDT with immediate effect and pulled the installer from the Download Center the same day. No deprecation period, no final release. If you didn’t already have the MSI saved somewhere, you now have to get a little creative just to install the product you’re trying to migrate away from. […]
Here is a quick tip for uninstalling a Windows 11 update if one causes an issue, as happened recently with the July 2026 update on certain Dell models.
If you imported a newer Windows Server 2025 release into MDT, you have probably seen this message when trying to deploy it: No task sequences are available (TaskSequences.xml does not exist, is empty, or is inaccessible) A VBScript Runtime Error has occurred:Error: 6 = OverflowVBScript Code:InitializeTSList Reason for the issue It turns out that newer […]
As pretty much all vendors are releasing new BIOS updates to fully support the new UEFI CA 2023 certificates, you've probably noticed that many of them include new Secure Boot trust settings. Here is a quick cheat sheet on what they are. The screenshot below is an example from HP, but most vendors have very […]
If you've patched a Windows 11 device with KB5089549 (the May 12, 2026 cumulative update) and looked in the root of C:\Windows lately, you've probably noticed something new: a SecureBoot folder containing an ExampleRolloutScripts subfolder with seven PowerShell scripts inside. You might even recognize these scripts because they were previously available as individual articles, where […]
Thank you to everyone who joined us in Naperville for the Intune event. We appreciate you spending the day with us, and hope you picked up a few things you can actually use in your environment. Below are the links and resources we covered during the event. Links PatchMyPChttps://patchmypc.com DeployR Communityhttps://2pintsoftware.com/products/deployr-community DeployR Enterprisehttps://2pintsoftware.com/products/deployr Microsoft Win32 […]
If you've been keeping WinPE up to date with the Windows UEFI CA 2023 trust chain, you already know the basics: download the latest ADK, slipstream the cumulative update into WinPE, copy the _EX boot files from the patched WIM into the ISO, and run oscdimg. Microsoft's MakeWinPEMedia /bootex automates most of this, and the […]
A few weeks ago, during our Secure Boot 2026 community course, we received several questions about community solutions for using ConfigMgr to inventory and track progress of UEFI 2023 certificate installations. At the time, I wasn’t aware of any, but this week during Office Hours, my good friend Andrew Johnson found a great solution from […]
Windows deployment isn’t going anywhere, no matter how often Microsoft talks about a cloud-only future. Out in the real world, imaging, task sequences, and controlled builds are still critical for many organizations. MDT hasn’t been developed since 2019, aside from a BIOS detection patch in 2020, and it has never officially supported Windows 11. It […]
In our labs, we often need to copy large files to multiple lab machines. These days, we have 10 GBE network cards on all file servers, but it wasn't long ago that we had only a 1 Gbps connection between the file server and the switch that connected the clients. To minimize the time it […]
Here is a quick PowerShell script to enable vTPM on one or more VMs in Hyper-V.
If you ever need to migrate a few Windows 11 VMs, with TPM (vTPM) activated, from one Hyper-V host to another, this is how. Export Certificates and VMs on the Old Hyper-V Host In addition to exporting the VMs, you also need to export the two certificates that are created when enabling vTPM on a […]
Since Microsoft doesn't officially support Windows 11 Deployments with MDT, nor support any Windows ADK version newer than Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1809 (build 17763), it's up to the OSD community to make it work. On the good side, with millions of MDT downloads during the years, you're not exactly alone 🙂 For […]
A question came in from the community that hits a very real pain point in ConfigMgr OSD:“Why is Windows Update suddenly running during my Task Sequence?” If you’ve spent any time building Task Sequences, you’ve likely seen this in action. You carefully design the flow to deploy Windows, apply drivers, install applications, and run scripts […]
I’m a geek who lives for automation. My happy place is a classroom full of PCs that just work—fresh images, clean profiles, the right drivers—so students can focus on learning instead of login drama. This post is about using the ConfigMgr Computer Refresh scenario to reset fleets fast and keep classes smooth. Background – The […]
Occasionally, I receive questions on how to use an AutoUnattend.xml file to automate the Windows 11 Setup. Here is a blog post on how to do just that, and as a bonus, I added instructions on how to stage PowerShell scripts and a Provisioning Package as part of the process. For example, to bulk enroll […]
Starting with Windows ADK 10.1.26100.2454 (December 2024), Microsoft now publishes ADK patches for both feature updates and bug fixes. Rather than a full uninstall/install, you can simply apply a patch file to your existing setup and keep it updated. When updates are issued, Microsoft releases them on the Windows ADK Servicing Updates page. Downloading and […]
On July 23, 2025, Microsoft announced the general availability (GA) of the standalone Microsoft Connected Cache solution, which features a slightly different setup compared to the preview release. Here is a guide on getting it going. The GA version is still free to use. You may also want to review the updated Release Notes. Requirements To […]
In a lab environment, it's quite useful to have different users logged on automatically to speed up automation and testing. In a ConfigMgr (SCCM) environment, this can be configured during OSD, or afterwards via Run Scripts or a Configuration Baseline. Note: This is intended for an isolated lab and test automation only. The username and […]
The Windows Update Assistant is a Microsoft utility that installs feature updates on your machines. For example, upgrading Windows 10 22H2 to Windows 11 24H2. While it's primarily designed for individual ad-hoc upgrades, I've seen a few organizations running this as an enterprise upgrade tool or as a backup when Feature Update Policies from Intune […]