MDT Wait for correct IP Address

It can happen when executing an LTI deployment that you get an error that your Deployment Share is not available.

If you hit F8 to open a DOS box and you notice you don't have an IP address (yet).

I have a trick how you can extend a bit the time for MDT to acquire an IP address.

I saw this already with several customers if they had some latency on their network cause by DHCP, network components,...

What you have to do is the following:

You mount your current boot image with imagex. (/mountrw)

Go to startnet.cmd and edit

Once you open the file in notepad the only contents will be the command:
wpeinit

Change the file to contain the following:
wpeutil InitializeNetwork
ping localhost (You could ping the WDS server too)
wpeinit

Save you changes of the cmd file.

Unmount the image and save your changes of the image. (/unmount /commit)

Burn this updated image to a new Installation CD or publish this image back to your WDS.

Your network issue should be solved now.

Dynamically install drivers with MDT 2010

MDT 2010 has some nice new features, one of them are Selection Profiles.

Like Michael describes on his blog Selection Profiles can be used for several things into MDT.

http://blogs.technet.com/mniehaus/archive/2009/07/12/mdt-2010-new-feature-18-selection-profiles.aspx

Another nice thing to use Selection Profiles for is to install drivers on a dynamic basis.

Create a driver folder structure into MDT. Then create a Selection Profile and call it like the respectively model names. You can read the model name out of WMI by executing:
CMD -> WMIC
CSProduct Get Name

In CustomSettings.ini you just add:
DriverSelectionProfile=%model%

OR

If you don't want to create a Selection Profile for each model you can create a rule that checks the dirver structure:

DriverGroups001=%Model%

(remark: if you build your Driver structure you need to call the folders like the WMI product name - cf. like we did with Selection Profiles)

MDT Database connections wit MDT 2010

If you encounter issues connecting to the MDT database, do the following for troubleshooting.

Put following files into one folder:

ztigather.xml
ztigather.wsf
customsettings.ini (where you specifiy the connection to the DB)
ztiutility.vbs
ZTIDataAcess.vbs

Execute following command from a host that needs to connect to the DB.
cscript ztigather.wsf /debug:true

Most common issues are SQL permission or Named Pipes that isn't enabled in SQL.

MDT 2010 Beta 2

Available at the Microsoft Connect site.

From now on you have everything to test Windows 7 Deployments via SCCM.

Don't forget to install SP2 (also beta) of SCCM as well!

Nico

OSD wipes the disk instead of formatting

Hi,

Did you ever noticed that if you change the advertisment distribution setting of your task sequence to "Access content directly..." your disk gets wiped instead of formatted?

The reason because of this is that MDT sets by default an argument on the "Format and Parition Disk" Task.

That argument looks like "_SMSTSDownloadOnDemand equals TRUE", if you remove this also your disk will be formatted when accessing the DP directly instead of downloading the content from the DP.

If you access the contect direcly you decrease the installation time significantly.

Nico

PXE issues - Part 2

Issue:
You get an IP address from your DHCP server but the system get stuck with contacting your PXE point, in the end you get a Vista boot error.

Solution:

Distribute always 64 bit to PXE point as well even for 32 bit machines


Almost all new computers these days are x64 capable even though you may only deploy a 32-bit operating system onto it. If the computer is x64 capable, then you must have an x64 boot image on the PXE Service Point, even if you are only planning to use a 32-bit boot image. The reason is that the PXE Service Point extracts certain files from the boot image that must be used in the very early stages of the PXE boot process. In this early stage, x64 files must be used on x64 capable hardware. Later in the process the PXE Service Point will determine that you want to use a 32-bit boot image and will revert to the 32-bit only code. But if you don't have the x64 boot image present on the PXE Service Point, it can't get past the early stages on x64 capable hardware.

SCCM and PXE troubles

Hi,

I suppose a lot of you have also troubles with WDS and SCCM.

Here you have a nice post, describing the issues I encountered.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrosd/thread/fb096553-22f8-4fe7-b326-a6bc7c126cb3