Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Easy and Fast Windows Deployment  

Thanks, Kari. I'm giving up on editing the answer files through the MDK for now. It's failing even with a clean install of Windows + ADK + WinPE + MDT for me at this point. I'm simply going to use WSIM which works flawlessly

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Kari, I have a question that's perplexing me a bit.

Currently, I can get clean installations of windows working just fine through MDT, but when I try to deploy an image that I have already syspreped, it's not working. I end up with a clean install without all my customizations.

I had considered the options in step 5.8 regarding the capturing of an image, but I suspect that I should not need to do that since my ISO image file is already a captured image. My thinking is that it is more likely that I simply need to make some changes to the unattend.xml answer file.

Does that sound like I am on the right track here?

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I think I figured it...

I have import that image into MDT as a custom image. I'm going to try that now.

@Kari,

I just wanted to update you on my progress and current issue I'm encountering as we were discussing today in another thread.

I ran through your tutorial and got everything working as noted.

Next, I tried a syspreped image that I have. Now that I have tried that image I recall exactly what my previous problem was as I am running into the same thing again.

First, let me describe my sysprep image...

I followed your tutorial on the topic of unattended install and built a reference machine. On that reference machine I applied a desktop wallpaper, changed File Explorer default settings, applied a change that allows the clock on the taskbar to show seconds in addition to the usual hours and minutes, and made a few other tweaks to turn off annoying things like the display of tips and suggestions, etc. I did not install any applications. You could say that this is a very basic set of changes.

I should note that when I install this sysprep image via unattended install everything works exactly as expected.

The problem that I am having is that when I deploy it via MDT all of my customizations are gone. The desktop wallpaper is the default, the clock is not configured as I set it, file explorer is configured with default settings, and all other personalization settings are at the defaults.

It's basically the same as if I had performed a clean install without any of my sysprep changes being maintained.

I'm stumped by this. Any ideas or suggestions of things that I might try?

Sounds good. In the meantime, I'm trying my best to research this.

Update: Looks like I really have it this time. Here is what I was doing wrong:

I was neglecting to put the unattend.xml file FROM MY SYSPREP image into the %DeploymentShare%\Control\TaskSequnceID folder. Once I did that, it installed just fine. I still need to follow the remaining steps in your tutorial to fully automate everything. For example, there is no sense in having the MDT wizard ask me abnout the timezone, etc. when all that is already in my sysprep image.

A couple of additional notes:

1) In step 5.3 of the tutorial, you note that if you are a member of a workgroup, you should specify the machine name as the domain name. For me, that does not work. What I have to do is this: For username, specify machine_name\username, and leave domain name blank.

2) Also, for some reason, I simply cannot run WSIM through MDT. It fails every time. I think I noted this back in November, and I continue to have that problem, but I simply launch WSIM separately, outside of MDT, and that works just fine.

So, this time I will report back again after I test further whether it is in fact all working, but so far, it's looking good. Last time I thought I had it, and never responded back to indicate that I was still having difficulties.

Another update.

I can now confirm that I have deployment of my previously created Sysprep images working through MDT.

I had noted in my previous post (post #15 in this thread), that I had to modify the logon procedure in step 5.3 of your tutorial. However, when modifying the bootstrap.ini file through MDT, I used the format that you noted in step 5.3 and oddly enough, that works fine.

I plan to do some additional testing over the weekend which will likely turn up some additional questions, so I'll post those here if I do run into any roadblocks.

In the meantime, thanks greatly for the help once again.

There are times when I really hate computers.

I had noted earlier that I finally had installation of my sysprep image working. Now, for the past several hours, I simply cannot duplicate that. I'm right back to my previous problems.

Well, I'm going to put this aside until morning. I've been at this for almost 24 hours straight.

Wow, it's amazing what lack of sleep will do. I got a couple quick hours sleep and started back in on this issue and almost immediately found where my error was.

Bottom line is that I have everything working fine now. The only thing that still is not working for me is the use of WSIM from MDT. That's not a problem because I can run it standalone outside of MDT. All I have left is a couple of questions and comments at this point.

1) Please forgive me for being nit picky here, but this is just an observation: In step 6.9 of the tutorial, right after the video clip there is a note. On the last line of that Note there is a reference to an "unattended.xml". That should be "unattend.xml" (note the extra "ed" as it currently is listed).

2) Why does SkipBDDWelcome=YES appear in both the rules and the bootstrap.ini? From my testing, it looks like only the entry in the bootstrap affects me when perfoming an install. Does the entry in the rules only affect other operations aside from the actual install or why is it there?

3) I'm a bit unclear as to when I need to perform an "Update Deployment Share" operation. I assume that anytime I add an operating system I will need to do this, but what about other operations? I've figured out that if I update the bootstrap.ini I also need to perform an update, but is there anything else that requires this as well?

4) Related to question #3, can I stack multiple operations before I need to update the deployment share? As an example, here is what I have been doing to be on the safe side:

create deployment share
add operating system
update deployment share
add task sequence
update deployment share
modify the rules and bootstrap.ini
update deployment share
if deploying a sysprep image, replace the unattend.xml with my unattend.xml for the sysprep install
update deployment share

Can I simplfy that like this?

create deployment share
add operating system
add task sequence
modify the rules and bootstrap.ini
if deploying a sysprep image, replace the unattend.xml with my unattend.xml for the sysprep install
update deployment share

Thanks!