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April 05, 2010
One thing I really like about MDT 2010 is the implementation of Search Folders. By this highly flexible solution one can create a complete structure for several different scenarios at the same deployment share and group it for specific requests. It allows to e.g. handle 32 and 64 Bit applications in the same structure but giving a specific Task sequence only “access” to some of the folders. While this feature gives a great amount of flexibility to the Deployment workbench, the MDT Database is lacking...
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Filed under: MDT, Frontend, MDT 2010, Database
March 02, 2010
In the Last Post I showed you, how you can easily create a custom Setting in the MDT Database and use it in your custom scripts. In the example shown we added a custom Setting called “ CollectionID ” to the Database to enable some kind of Pre-staging for computers. With the example you would e.g. be able to pre-stage computer based on their SerialNumber in the MDT Database and then add it on the fly to the appropriate collection on the fly when pxe/cd booting the new computer. Very helpful if your...
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Filed under: MDT 2008, Microsoft Deployment, Frontend, MDT 2010, How To
March 01, 2010
Finally it’s done! I’m very happy to announce the release of version 1.0 of the MDT Web FrontEnd . It took a bit longer than expected since the last Beta from November 2009 but a lot of nice things needed to be added. But first, what is the MDT Web FrontEnd ? The MDT Web FrontEnd is a web based alternative for the MDT configuration database. It is 100% compatible to current MDT 2008, MDT 2008 Update 1 and MDT 2010 database installations running on SQL 2005 or 2008. Optionally (and recommended...
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Filed under: MDT 2008, Microsoft Deployment, MDT, Frontend, MDT 2010
February 01, 2010
In the last post I showed you how you can create custom Groups of settings, making it possible to give different Users a different amount of available and changeable information. In this post, I will show you some more advanced features of the MDT Web FrontEnd as it is able to handle custom settings the same way as handling the MDT built-in settings. MDT gives us a lot of possibilities right out of the box. But often you reach a point in your Deployment, where the built-in methods, scripts and properties...
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Filed under: Webservice, Boot Wizard, MDT, Frontend, MDT 2010, How To
January 25, 2010
In the last Post I showed you how you can use the MDT Web FrontEnd to restrict access to the MDT Deployment database. Following this you are able to restrict e.g. a Helpdesk User to only add and edit computers but that he/she can’t do anything else on Locations, Roles or MakeModels. But everybody who has access to the Settings of an Identity will still be able to see and maybe also change all Settings. This raises several problems. A User might still be able to see more then he is supposed to see...
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Filed under: MDT 2008, MDT, Frontend, MDT 2010, How To
January 17, 2010
The MDT Deployment Database is a great utility for your Deployments, no matter if you are using it in LTI or ZTI scenarios. Tim Mintner recently wrote an interesting article about what the Database is and why one should use it . If you use the Deployment console to access the database it has (at least) one major drawback, especially in larger Deployments. Out of the box, the console is the only way of accessing and changing the database (beside using the SQL Management Studio and making changes directly...
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Filed under: MDT 2008, MDT, Frontend, MDT 2010, How To
November 17, 2009
There are a lot of good guides and information about using the new Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 to deploy Windows 7 or to “Upgrade” from Windows XP to Windows 7. You have the Quick Start Guides in the MDT Documentation. You have some screen casts and training material like the Deployment CD and a lot of other pages explaining those steps. Even if Microsoft doesn’t really like to hear this, but out there is still a whole bunch of existing Windows XP Installations. Some of them might consider...
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Filed under: MDT 2010, USMT, Windows XP
August 30, 2009
In my last post I already wrote about some of the changes in MDT 2010 regarding Data Access you should be aware of if using webservices. But also a new feature has been implemented into MDT 2010. It’s now possible to call webservices with authentication. So far you had to publish the webservice either to anonymous users or write your own extension to call webservices. Anonymous access is probably ok for most read-access operations but can also be a security issue if it comes to executing changes...
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Filed under: Webservice, MDT 2010
August 28, 2009
In MDT 2010 there has been some changes in the scripts. One of these changes was to extract the Classes regarding Data Access (Database, Webservice) into a separate script called "ZITDataAccess.vbs". If you created your own custom scripts which made use of one of these classes you need to update them to reflect this change. I will show the necessary changes by way of changing my scripts used in " Moving computer in Active Directory using a webservice ". As the MDT Team just moved...
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Filed under: Webservice, Microsoft Deployment, Active Directory, MDT 2010