Chris and Daves SharePoint and Tech Blog

Rule Settings in MDT 2010 

   MDT 2010 as you have seen is very customizable and you can stop some screens showing with the rules available in MDT this will cut down on the amount of input required during the operating system install. Theses inbuilt rules are quite limited so below you will find many more that you can add. 

To access the rules from the deployment workbench Right click your deployment share and choose properties the second tab (Rules) will show you the limited built in rules. 

The list of rules below when applied will only show 3 screens during the install process Computer Name

 Task Sequence Selection

 Time Zone Selection

[Settings]

Priority=Default

Properties=MyCustomProperty

 [Default]

OSInstall=YES

SkipAdminPassword=YES

SkipApplications=YES

SkipAppsOnUpgrade=YES

SkipBDDWelcome=YES

SkipBitLocker=YES

SkipCapture=YES

SkipComputerName=No

SkipComputerBackup=YES

SkipDeploymentType=YES

DeploymentType=NEWCOMPUTER

SkipDomainMembership=YES

JoinDomain=Demo

DomainAdmin=administrator

DomainAdminDomain= Demo

DomainAdminPassword=*******

SkipFinalSummary=No

SkipLocaleSelection=YES

KeyboardLocale=en-GB

UserLocale=en-GB

UILanguage=en-GB

SkipPackageDisplay=YES

SkipProductKey=YES

SkipSummary=YES

SkipTaskSequence=NO

SkipTimeZone=YES

TimeZone=085

TimeZoneName=Greenwich Standard Time

SkipUserData=Yes

I hope this article helps with your OS deployments using MDT 2010 I will try to keep the blog updated on the latest MDT improvements.

Update

On 15^th July 2010 Microsoft released update 1 for MDT 2010 I have applied this update and the good news is all still works you can download from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3bd8561f-77ac-4400-a0c1-fe871c461a89&displaylang=en&tm

You can also find this series of post as a single pdf file see below.

MDT 2010 Setup Step by Step

Windows Deployment services PXE boot image

  One of the steps at the beginning of this article was to setup Windows Deployment Services we will now use this to deploy a PXE boot image. From the Start Menu | Administration Tools select Windows Deployment Services once open right click on boot images and select ‘Add Boot Image’

The boot images are stored in your deployment share and are found in the boot folder I will select the LiteTouchPE_x86.wim file for this demo

The final step of this part is to enable multicast this is achieved by going back to the MDT workbench and right click on the deployment share and choose properties on the general tab and tick enable multicast from the general page.

Creating a Task sequence

  The final part in configuring MDT 2010 is to create a task sequence this will enable you to deploy your chosen operating systems to your client workstations.

 The first step is to open the deployment workbench and right click on the task sequence node and choose “New Task Sequence”

The first screen you will see is the general settings enter a Task Sequence ID and a Task sequence name you can optionally enter a description

The next screen asks which template to use I will leave this at the default setting Standard client task sequence

The next screen asks you to choose your OS earlier in the article I set up a Windows 7 OS so this is displayed here

The next screen asks you to specify a product key this give you three options do not specify a product key is what I will choose as we use a KMS server for key management

The next screen asks for your OS setting Full name, Organization and IE home page

The next screen asks for a local admin password you can let the user enter their own or specify a password yourself I would always set a password otherwise you could end up in a situation where every workstation has an individual password and this situation would be unmanageable.

Next you will see a summary screen giving a breakdown of all the information in your new task sequence

Once you click next your task sequence will be created and a final confirmation screen will be shown

Finally as I have said previously update the deployment share from the deployment workbench this is always a good habit to get into after every change you make.

In the next and final part of this series we will look at MDT Rules.

Dave

Adding an application to your MDT installation

The next thing we will do is add Office 2010 to the base image this is not a necessary step at the moment so if you deploy applications using a 3rd party tool you can skip this step. Open the Deployment workbench and the MDT Deployment Share section and right click on the applications sub section and choose “New Application”

This will launch the new application wizard this will give you three options

Application with source files

Application without source files or elsewhere on the network

Application Bundle

On the next screen fill in the Publisher details, Application name, Version and Language the only mandatory field is application name

The next screen asks you to choose the location of the source files I will be using the Office 2010 DVD for this article

The next screen will ask for the destination location in your MDT deployment I will leave this at the default setting.

The next screen asks for the command line to kick off the install you can use command line arguments in this but again I will leave it as default and customize later.

Next you will see a summary screen and when you click next all the source files will be copied to your deployment.

After the copy process click finish your application is now ready to deploy with your image.

Customizing your application

   From the deployment workbench click on application and right click on your newly created package and choose properties

From this screen we will see 4 tabs including an office products tab as illustrated below.

The part we are going to focus on is the “Office Customization Tool” button you can on the office tab enter the product key and enter basic information but we will look more closely at the advanced customization available.

Office Customization Tool

  When you click on the Office Customization Tool button an information box will pop up informing you that the MSP file created will need to be stored in the updates folder so that setup can find it during the office install.

Once Ok is click you will see the screen illustrated below

Highlight the product and click OK this will give you access to the advanced customization

This interface and options available would require a booklet of its own but you can find more information at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx  

  Once you have finished your customization close the tool and update the deployment share from the workbench this is always good practice after any changes.

  Over the last few weeks we have completed quite a few installs of SharePoint 2010 and one of the questions we get asked time and time again is what is required to run SharePoint 2010, so I thought through this post I would write down exactly what is needed so I can point customers to this blog post and they would then have a reference chart of what is needed in their environment.

Hardware

Software

 I do hope this simple post helps in your decision on SharePoint 2010.

Dave

Adding a Base Image to MDT 2010

 The next step is now to add a base image to your MDT deployment.

Expand the deployment shares and right click Operating Systems and select ‘Import Operating System’

I will choose the Full set of source files option and for this I will need the windows 7 DVD so click next

Choose the path to your source files and click next

Select a destination directory name I will stick with the defaults for this article you will then be presented with a summary screen check to make sure all is ok and then click next this will take you to a progress screen and once the import is completed click finish.

The next step is to update the right clicking on MDT Deployment shares and choose ‘Update Deployment Share’

Select completely regenerate the boot images this is always good practice each time you make any changes to your MDT setup

In the next part in the series i will show you how to add applications to your MDT deployment

  I have previously written a series of articles on how we stream media files and deliver these through SharePoint (Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3)  but these are all based in our MOSS 2007 environment now that we are moving over to SharePoint 2010 I thought I would give you a heads up on ASX files and 2010.

 We were horrified to find that when we click on an ASX file in SharePoint 2010 it did not stream the file as in 2007 but only gave us the option to save or cancel as illustrated below

Now we have found a way around this you can either change the file extension from ASX to WMV and then it works or go to Central Administration |Application Management | Manage Web Applications highlight the web application that hosts your media library and click on general settings

Once you have done that scroll down to the “Browser file handler” section

The out of the box setting is set to strict change this to permissive and then click OK no IIS reset is required and now when you click on an ASX file your video will stream.

We have in excess of 4500 so finding this setting was a god send and I do hope that it helps others.

Dave

One of the things that annoys me in Outlook is when someone asks for a read receipt, today I received another mail from someone asking for a read receipt so I thought I would have a delve around the options to see if I can block this annoying feature. And after checking a few locations in the options I managed to find it, so I thought I would take the opportunity to share with you how to block this if you also find that annoying

 Go to Backstage (file)

Click options Click on Mail and scroll down to the tracking section and choose never send a Read Receipt

Then click OK and no more read receipts ever annoyance over.

Dave

Today I had the pleasure of presenting at the Learning Gateway Conference on the topic of branding.

I’m going to write a few blog posts going into more detail but for now I just wanted to get the slide deck up.

This post is a continuation in the series on MDT part 1 can be found at http://www.sharepointedutech.com/2010/07/07/mdt-2010-setup-step-by-step-part-1/

 Installing the Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7

   MDT 2010 uses the Windows 7 automated installation kit which can be down loaded from the Microsoft site here so before we continue I will install and configure, the download for AIK is an ISO file you can at this point burn to a DVD or unpack the ISO file and run setup.

Click on Windows AIK setup from the list on the left and all I did to complete the installation of AIK is follow the prompts and accept all the default values.

 Install Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010

  The next step is to download from here the installation files for MDT 2010 on this site you will find install files for 64bit and also 32bit installs as well various read me files to help you get the most out of MDT 2010.

Again with this install I will accept all the default values as I go through the install. After the install is completed you will have a new start menu item called Microsoft Deployment Toolkit we will now continue the configuration by clicking on deployment workbench.

Configure The Deployment Shares For MDT 2010

 Through this part of the post I will show how to configure the images you require for your operating system deployments I will be using windows 7 for this but you could use windows vista or XP.

You now need to create a deployment share this is completed by right clicking deployment share in the MMC and selecting ‘new deployment share’

I will store all my images on the E data drive I created earlier for my server setup

By default the system will create the share as a hidden share (With a $ symbol at the end) I will leave this as the setting to use

The next screen asks for a descriptive name I will accept the default setting

The next screen asks if an image should be captured if you are planning on using MDT to capture the image leave this ticked

The next screen asks if you should allow users to set the local admin password I would recommend leaving this unticked as you could end up not knowing the local admin password on any of your computers and potentially every machine having a unique admin password (not sure how you could manage that situation)

The next screen asks should the user be prompted for a product key this can be useful but we use a KMS server (Maybe another post) so we do not require this so I will leave it unticked.

Next you will see the summary screen check all the settings and click next

By Default the permissions setup on the deployment share are –

The next post i will include information on adding a base image

  Last night on twitter I asked a question would SharePoint Saturday work in the UK? And to say the least it certainly got people’s attention with replies from Alex Pearce, Spencer Harbar, Matt Hughes, Mike Herrity, Agnes Molnar, Veronique Palmer and Dux Raymond Sy and others.

 This morning I had an email from Veronique looping me in with others that may be interested in trying to put on the first SharePoint Saturday UK event. I have already been offered a location at no cost that is centrally situated in the UK, but I think it comes down to people’s attitude to the weekend in the UK.

 So can it be done? Well back in January Mark Miller from Endusersharepoint.com organised a virtual SharePoint Saturday EMEA and I must say it was a great success but there is nothing like meeting people face to face. Now with the venue sourced I should imagine the big question comes down to when?

 Now I know that the UK winter can be a bit bleak so I would suggest the winter months as we all like to make the most of the sun when we do see it, my suggestion would be end of January or beginning of February. I have this morning set up a new email address at sps@sharepointedutech.com so if would be interested in presenting a session or attending please drop me a line and we will see how we get on. I am more than willing to organise this event for the SharePoint community in the UK so please show your support and let’s make it happen.

Dave