If you deployed a Windows Server 2012 R2 image with MDT to a machine (physical or virtual) you quickly learned that connecting to the administrative shares, C$, D$ etc. as Administrator is not very easy.

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Splitting images into 4GB chunks is quite useful if doing UEFI-based offline media deployments.

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Every now and then you run into machines that are not part of the domain, but still need to have local group policies applied to them.

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When setting variables in MDT Lite Touch, they need to be written to Variables.dat to be able to survive a reboot. This is of course very much needed when using a custom PowerShell frontend or script in the WinPE phase.

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With Windows 10 v1607 just released, its about time for a quick guide on building the perfect Windows 10 v1607 reference image.

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It’s early August, and a shiny August it is already: Both Windows 10 v1607 and Windows 10 ADK v1607 released within 24 hours 🙂

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Since ConfigMgr 2012 R2 SP1, the boot images used has been more “sensitive” to network configurations, and in ConfigMgr Current Branch it got even worse. However with some simple tweaks you can configure the boot images to work in the crappiest of networks. Here is what you need to do.

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Anyone using ConfigMgr for OS Deployment for more than four seconds knows that it’s the log files you turn to when things go wrong. However even in ConfigMgr Current Branch (currently v1511 as base version, with v1602 as most recent upgrade), since debug logging is enabled by default, a log file can easily grow to 5 – 6 MB with just the default task sequence. That wouldn’t be much problem if the log file didn’t truncate a 2 MB, and then created an archive (one archive only). 2 + 2 MB is still less than 5 – 6 MB.

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For those of you using WSUS standalone for your updates, here is a collection of tips and tricks:

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Most managing solutions (SCCM/ConfigMgr, Intune, or just scheduled PowerShell tasks 🙂 ) makes use of an agent type method for control, to make sure the computer can do the work when it’s capable of doing so (like being on the network, powered on etc.). However, sometimes you have to get some Ad Hoc work done quickly, on as many machines as possible at that moment, and for that PowerShell and CIM sessions can be very useful.

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During MMS 2016 I demonstrated how to use a web service to query AD groups in order to install ConfigMgr Packages and Applications dynamically during OS Deployment, here is the code and sample scripts.

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As you probably know, ConfigMgr Current Branch has a built-in task sequence template for Windows 10 Inplace-Upgrades. This template is used for Windows 7/8/8.1 to Windows 10 upgrades as well as Windows 10 to Windows 10 upgrades (when a new build is available).

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Lately one of my Windows 10 machines started to behave quite strange, after about a day of use, browsing Internet was no longer possible. I could still ping resources, but not use any browser or other application requiring Internet access. A reboot fixed the problem, and then after about a day, sometimes less, the same thing happened.

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Follow-up post to an earlier post on installing PowerShell 4.0 for Windows 7 using MDT, this time for PowerShell 5.0.

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Yesterday I got a question on Twitter from Kyle Wilcox about installing PowerShell 4.0 using MDT for a Windows 7 build. So here it is: A geeks guide to install PowerShell 4.0 for Windows 7 using MDT 2013 Update 2.

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Earlier this afternoon I was watching the Deploying Windows 10: Automating Deployment by Using System Center Configuration Manager live event from Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA). The three sessions were presented by Aaron Czechowski and Wally Mead, both well known profiles within the ConfigMgr space. Here follows a summary of the live event:

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In two different production environments, running ConfigMgr Current Branch (1511), I have seen the “Failed to find a valid network adapter” error happening when starting a bare metal deployment. In both environments the machines did get an IP address, and pretty quickly too, but apparently not quickly enough for ConfigMgr.

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What to do on a Sunday morning?  Well copying a 10 GB MDT media deployment share (OEM Scenario) to 32 USB sticks for a start  🙂

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Yay! My Windows 10 OS Deployment sessions from NIC 2015 are now available on YouTube.

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If you have been deploying Windows for longer than 4 seconds, you know that the MDT log files are written in a format designed for the CMTrace utility. Here are two quick guides on how to add it to the MDT boot images (the supported way, and the cool/fun way 🙂  ).

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