Mastering the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

Key Features

• Learn Microsoft Deployment Toolkit best practices and how to adopt them into your deployment project
• Troubleshoot task sequence errors and quickly resolve deployment blockers
• An easy-to-follow, in-depth guide to image creation, customization, and deployment of Windows

Book Description

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) provides a comprehensive collection of tools, processes, and guidance for automating desktop and server deployments. It considerably reduces deployment time and standardizes desktop and server images. Moreover, MDT offers improved security and ongoing configuration management. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is the official supported method of creating and customizing Windows images for deployment.

Starting from scratch, this book walks you through the MDT setup, task sequence creation, and image deployment steps in detail. Breaking down the various MDT concepts, this book will give you a thorough understanding of the deployment process.

Beginning with imaging concepts and theory, you will go on to build a Microsoft Deployment Toolkit environment. You will understand the intricacies of customizing the default user profile in different versions of Windows. Driver handling can be a challenge for larger organizations; we’ll cover various driver concepts including mandatory driver profiles. ]Other important topics like the User State Migration Tool (USMT), configuration of XML files, and how to troubleshoot the USMT are also discussed in the book.

We will cover the verifier and Windows Performance Toolkit for image validation scenarios. Furthermore, you will learn about MDT web frontend implementation as well as how to utilize the database capabilities of MDT for deeper deployment options. We’ll wrap it all up with some links to resources for more information, blogs to watch, and useful Twitter handles.

What you will learn

• Build a production-ready MDT environment
• Administer the environment for multiple users
• Customize your reference image with an MDT Task Sequence
• Create standalone media for offline deployments
• Customize the default user profile according to the version of Windows
• Get to grips with some troubleshooting steps and processes to reduce the time for recovery of a failed image
• Customize and create Windows images for deployment
• Discover useful tips and tricks to help save time in your deployment projects

About the Author

Jeff Stokes is a deployment and performance specialist for Windows operating systems. Jeff has a passion for the user experience in enterprise environment. As an avid public speaker, podcaster, blogger, and mentor, Jeff started his IT career at Digital in the 90s, and has been hard at work ever since. Currently, employed at Microsoft, he is expanding his horizons with projects in big data and data analytics.

When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends. His hobbies are gaming, music, and writing.

Table of Contents

1. Imaging Concepts and Theory
2. Setting Up Your Environment
3. Creating Reference Images
4. Default User Profile Customization
5. CustomSettings.ini and Task Sequence
6. Drivers
7. Image Deployment
8. USMT – The User State Migration Tool
9. Troubleshooting Deployment Logs
10. Validating the Image
11. Database, UserExit Scripts, and Web Services
12. Additional Enterprise Configuration Items