Window deployment tools

Microsoft SCM is a free utility used to create baseline security settings for the Windows client and server environment. The current version of Security Compliance Manager includes baselines for Windows 8. The SCM console showing a baseline configuration for a fictional client's computer security compliance. MDOP is a suite of technologies available to Software Assurance customers through an additional subscription.

Microsoft Application Virtualization App-V. App-V 5. With the release of App-V 5. UE-V monitors the changes that are made by users to application settings and Windows operating system settings.

The user settings are captured and centralized to a settings storage location. These settings can then be applied to the different computers that are accessed by the user, including desktop computers, laptop computers, and virtual desktop infrastructure VDI sessions.

AGPM enables advanced management of Group Policy objects by providing change control, offline editing, and role-based delegation. DaRT provides additional tools that extend Windows RE to help you troubleshoot and repair your machines.

It allows you to configure your enterprise with the correct BitLocker encryption policy options, as well as monitor compliance with these policies. It gives you the capability to customize Internet Explorer as you would like. The wizard creates one. WSUS is a server role in Windows Server R2 that enables you to maintain a local repository of Microsoft updates and then distribute them to machines on your network.

WSUS offers approval control and reporting of update status in your environment. BIOS has served us well, but it is time to replace it with something better. In this section, you learn the major differences between the two and how they affect operating system deployment.

BIOS has been in use for approximately 30 years. Even though it clearly has proven to work, it has some limitations, including:. UEFI Version 2. Later versions have been released to address issues; a small number of machines may need to upgrade their firmware to fully support the UEFI implementation in Windows 8 and later. Microsoft started with support for EFI 1. With UEFI 2. Windows 10 supports both. However, UEFI does not support cross-platform boot. This means that a computer that has UEFI x64 can run only a bit operating system, and a computer that has UEFI x86 can run only a bit operating system.

Here are considerations to keep in mind when working with UEFI devices:. Step 4: Select the default path or enter a custom path to store the directories, then click Next.

Step 5: Then, you will receive a warning message, you just need to click Yes to confirm. The configuration process for Windows Deployment Services takes several minutes, depending on the speed of the server being used. Once Windows Deployment Services has been successfully configured, it'll be ready to use.

To sum up, this post has introduced what Windows Deployment Services is, and you can also know the purpose and requirements of the Windows Deployment Services.

Besides, this post introduces how to configure it. I hope that this post can be helpful to you. Provides a new upgrade task sequence template that you can use to upgrade existing Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8. For more information about using this new upgrade task sequence, refer to the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit resource page.

An LTI deployment strategy requires very little infrastructure or user interaction, and can be used to deploy an operating system from a network share or from a physical media, such as a USB flash drive or disc. When deploying the Windows operating system using MDT, most of the administration and configuration is done through the Deployment Workbench, but you also can perform many of the tasks using Windows PowerShell. That will give you the PowerShell command. If you click View Script on the right side, you will get the PowerShell code that was used to perform the task.

A deployment share is essentially a folder on the server that is shared and contains all the setup files and scripts needed for the deployment solution. It also holds the configuration files called rules that are gathered when a machine is deployed.

These configuration files can reach out to other sources, like a database, external script, or web server to get additional settings for the deployment. For Lite Touch deployments, it is common to have two deployment shares: one for creating the reference images and one for deployment. For Zero Touch, it is common to have only the deployment share for creating reference images because Configuration Manager deploys the image in the production environment.

The rules CustomSettings. The rules control the Windows Deployment Wizard on the client and, for example, can provide the following settings to the machine being deployed:. Example of a MDT rule. In this example, the new computer name is being calculated based on PC- plus the first seven Left characters from the serial number.

The boot images connect to the deployment share on the server and start the deployment. Using the Deployment Workbench, you import the operating systems you want to deploy. The full-source operating systems are primarily used to create reference images; however, they also can be used for normal deployments. Using the Deployment Workbench, you also add the applications you want to deploy.

MDT supports virtually every executable Windows file type. The file can be a standard. In fact, it can be just about anything that can be executed unattended.

MDT also supports the new Universal Windows apps. You also use the Deployment Workbench to import the drivers your hardware needs into a driver repository that lives on the server, not in the image. With the Deployment Workbench, you can add any Microsoft packages that you want to use. The most commonly added packages are language packs, and the Deployment Workbench Packages node works well for those.

You also can add security and other updates this way. The rare exceptions are critical hotfixes that are not available via WSUS, packages for the boot image, or any other package that needs to be deployed before the WSUS update process starts. Task sequences are the heart and soul of the deployment solution.

When creating a task sequence, you need to select a template. The templates are located in the Templates folder in the MDT installation directory, and they determine which default actions are present in the sequence. You can think of a task sequence as a list of actions that need to be executed in a certain order. Each action can also have conditions.

Some examples of actions are as follows:. MDT comes with nine default task sequence templates. You can also create your own templates.

As long as you store them in the Templates folder, they will be available when you create a new task sequence. Sysprep and Capture task sequence. Used to run the System Preparation Sysprep tool and capture an image of a reference computer.

Note : It is preferable to use a complete build and capture instead of the Sysprep and Capture task sequence.