Setting up automatic deployment of Windows 7 with MDT and WDS

(Note: For this tutorial I will be doing all of the work on a Windows 10 box)

There are a few pre-requisites for this:

Windows 10 ADK: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/dn913721.aspx#deploy
Windows Server 2008 / 2012 with the WDS role installed.
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48595

We should then launch the 'Depoyment Workbench' and create a new Deployment Share by right-hand clicking on the 'Deployment Share' node.

Once created - expand our new deployment share node and right-hand click on the 'Operating Systems' node and select 'Import OS' and proceed to either specify pre-created WIM images or simply point the wizard to a mounted ISO image of Windows 7.

Since there will also likely be many different computer models we will also need to inject drivers into our image - fortunately the 'Deployment Workbench' utility allows us to perform this pretty easily. It is also worth noting that a lot of computer manafacturers (like Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo etc.) will provide 'driver packs' for specific model / product lines so that  you can easily import all of the relevent drivers at once.

So to do this we right-hand click on the Out-of-box drivers' node and select 'Import Drivers'. The beauty of the driver integration with MDT is that drivers are injected offline into the relevent WIM images - so you do not have to have thousands of drivers in one WIM image.

NOTE: A lot of driver packs are labelled as for use with SCCM - although in my experience I have found these driver packs seem to work fine with MDT to!

We should now right-hand click on our MDT depployment share and go to >> Properties >> Rules and add / modify with something like the following:

[Settings]
Priority=Default
Properties=MyCustomProperty
[Default] 

OSInstall=Y
SkipCapture=NO
SkipAdminPassword=YES
SkipProductKey=YES
SkipComputerBackup=YES
SkipBitLocker=YES
SkipLocaleSelection=YES
SkipTimezone=YES
Timezone=1200
TimeZoneName=GMT Standard Time
UILanguage=en-GB
UserLocale=en-US
Systemlocale=en-GB
KeyboardLocale=2057:00000409

Note: For working out timezone ID's and keyboard locales see the following links:
http://powershell.org/wp/2013/04/18/determining-language-locales-and-values-for-mdt-2012-with-powershell/
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg154758.aspx

We now want to capture an image of the build we are creating - so to do this we need to create a new 'task sequence' by right-hand clicking the 'Task Sequences' node >> 'New Task Sequence' >> Fill in a task sequence ID and name e.g. 'Capture Windows 7 Image' >> The template should be set to 'Sysprep and Capture' and finally follow the rest of the wizard.

Important: Ensure you now right-hand click on the deployment share and select "Update Deployment Share"

Now in order to capture an image we should install Windows 7 on ideally a VM - customise it as you wish e.g. registry settings, tweaks to UI etc. and then browse to the MDT share (e.g. \\MDTHost\Deploymentshare$ which contains your deployment share and run the file called litetouch.vbs which is located in the 'scripts' subfolder.

This will launch the capture wizard - which will usually take a few minutes to launch. Once the task sequence menu appears proceed by selecting 'Capture Image' and then ensure 'Capture an image of this reference computer' is selected (make a note of the .wim filename and location as we will need this for WDS!) and hit Next - enter the required credentails to connect to the network share (ensuring that user can read / write to that share!) and complete the wizard.

Now proceed - the system should then reboot into the WinPE enviornment - although I got an invalid credentail error message appear in the WinPE environment preventing me from proceeding! This was due to the fact that I had not updated my deployment share (right-hand click on it and select 'Update') and hence the WinPE images had not been generated!

Follow through the wizard and capture your images. Now reboot again and verify new .wim image is available.

If any errors occur during this process the log files can be found in: C:\Windows\Temp\DeploymentLogs. The specific file we are interested in is called BDD.log (contains all log entries) and LiteTouch.log.

We can open these files with notepad - although using something like SMSTrace / CMTrace makes everying ALOT easier...

We should now create a new Task Sequence in MDT: Right-hand click 'Operating Systems' and select 'Import' >> Select 'From custom capture' and point it to your image file you captured earlier.

Noiw proceed by Right-hand clicking 'Task Sequences' >> 'New Task Sequence' >> Name: Deploy Image >> Template: Standard Client Task Sequence >> and complete the wizard with the relevent settings e.g. product key etc.

Once the new task sequence has been completed we should right-hand click it and go to properties >> 'Task Sequence' tab >> Install >> 'Install Operating System' and select your custom .wim image.

We should refer to the following website in order to automate the deployment task sequence:

https://scriptimus.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/lti-deployments-skipping-deployment-wizard-panes/

For reference I added something like:

[Settings]
Priority=Default
Properties=MyCustomProperty 

[Default]
OSInstall=Y
SkipBDDWelcome=YES
DeployRoot=\\deploymenthost\DeploymentShare$
UserDomain=my.domain
UserID=administrator
UserPassword=mysecurepassword
SLShareDynamicLogging=\\deploymenthost\DeploymentShare$\Logs
SkipApplications=NO
SkipCapture=NO
SkipAdminPassword=YES
SkipProductKey=YES
SkipComputerBackup=YES
SkipBitLocker=YES
SkipLocaleSelection=YES
SkipTimezone=YES
Timezone=1200
TimeZoneName=GMT Standard Time
UILanguage=en-GB
UserLocale=en-US
Systemlocale=en-GB
KeyboardLocale=2057:00000409
BitsPerPel=32
VRefresh=60
XResolution=1
YResolution=1
TaskSequenceID=50
SkipTaskSequence=YES
JoinDomain=my.domain
DomainAdmin=administrator
DomainAdminDomain=my.domain
DomainAdminPassword=mysecurepassword
SkipUserData=YES
SkipComputerBackup=YES
SkipPackageDisplay=YES
SkipSummary=YES
SkipFinalSummary=YES

** Note: You MUST add the following to boot.ini as well:

SkipBDDWelcome=YES
DeployRoot=\\deploymentserver\DeploymentShare$
UserDomain=my.domain
UserID=admin
UserPassword=mypassword

** As a word of caution you should ensure that the accounts you use e.g. to connect to deployment share, join computer to domain etc. are limited as they are contained in plain-text in the bootstrap files. For example I limited access for my user to only the deployment share and delegated access permissions to allow the account to join computers to the domain. **

Because of this we will need to regenerate the boot image! So right-hand click the deployment share and click 'Update Deployment Share' **

We will now use these with WDS - so in the WDS console we go to: Right-hand click 'Boot Images' >> 'Add Boot Image...' >> Select the LiteTouchPE_x64.wim located within our MDT deployment share (it's in the 'boot' folder). We should also add an 'Install Image' - selecting the .wim / capture image we created earlier.

Now simply boot from the WDS server and the task sequence should automatically be started.

If you are using a Cisco router - something like the following would get you up and running for PXE boot:

ip dhcp pool vlanXX
next-server 1.2.3.4
option 67  boot\x64\wdsnbp.com