Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Easy and Fast Windows Deployment  

hsehestedt said:

I was trying to avoid having to use Windows Server or SCCM as I don't have access to either any longer.

@Kari

Is it possible @hsehestedt might also accomplish what he wants using an MDT database?

I've never used an MDT database myself (again, I'm just a novice at MDT LTI) but could an MDT database be configured to provide the disk number based on computer make/model or even based on UUID if a more granular level of control is required? This wouldn't require any user input but requires an MDT database be maintained.

This was mainly just wondering if it could be done. I was really just trying to expand my knowledge of MDT a bit further.

Personally, I still prefer my unattended setups because I have so many automated processes worked out for those installations.

Actually, this brings up another question I've had.

Kari, I presume that you have been working with latest insider builds of the ADK. Would you happen to know if Microsoft has implemented any easy way to specify that the recovery partition be placed last on the drive? Let me explain a little more...

When you install a clean copy of Windows (not an unattended installation) Windows will place the recovery partition last. This adheres to he latest guidance from Microsoft where they suggest placing this partition last. However, when you do an unattended installtion you would typically place the Windows partition last because you specify that this partition occupy all remaining space on the drive. To place a recovery partition after the Windows partition you would have to specify a specific size to create the Windows partition so that you have sufficient space after that partition. This means modifying the answer file everytime you have a different sized disk. In other words, there is not a built-in mechanism to say something like "create a partition that occupies all remaining space but leave 500MB free after this partition".

I've worked around this issue by creating a script that runs during unattended setup that does the partitioning for me using diskpart which will let me shrink the Windows partition by a precise amount, but I can't help but wonder if Microsoft isn't going to provide a mechanism to do this for you automatically in unattended setup. Just curious if you have seen anything like that in the latest builds since I've not played with anything beyond the released version.

Thanks for this. This is a lot easier to understand than what Microsoft has.

I guess I am now looking for the next step beyond this. I want to add users, their accounts, and map some drives and printers and would like to know how to do this.

Hi, thank you so much for the help, I am still using this article. I am just having issues loading into the OOBE. I am trying to follow step 9 and get into audit mode and add applications there in order to capture a custom wim. Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

Sarah