Month: June 2014

In the first post in this series, we created an OSD Task Sequence that is ideal for the SMB market. We touched on some of the automation options available with MDT, and were ultimately able to deploy operating systems to machines at the main office. Our next step is to make this Task Sequence deployable to branch workstations so they don’t need a nearby Distribution Point, PXE Service Point, or State Migration Point. To do that, we’ll update a copy of the Task Sequence with some integrations that come with 1E Nomad. But first, let’s right click on our Task Sequence from the first post and choose Copy. We’ll append -Nomad to the task sequence name, so it looks like this: Once we have our copy, we’ll go in and edit the new sequence. However, before we start adding the Nomad injections, we need to fix a problem that Nomad will have with Bare Metal Deployments. When a brand new computer begins Task Sequence Execution, it will first partition and format the drive. The Task Sequence will perform some actions, and then ultimately format the drive again. This is a problem, as we’ve already started caching packages and created references to files that will be force-removed. Therefore, we need to get all the format stuff taken care of at the beginning. To do that, we’ll simply move the Format...

This is the first post of a series that will walk you through the process to create a Task Sequence in Configuration Manager 2012 R2 that can be deployed for all scenarios (Bare Metal, Refresh, Replace). It uses MDT 2013 to augment the sequence and provide some location-based automation rules. To provide full OSD functionality to branch locations without the need for servers, in the next post we will go through the process to create a second Task Sequence specifically for Nomad-enabled sites. The third post goes over how to configure Automatic Deployment Rules to maximize workstation patching with minimal effort. Though not specifically related to OSD, a solid patching design will eliminate the need to perform Software Updates during a Task Sequence, further reducing execution time. There are a few prerequisites and assumptions that must be in place before we get started with our Task Sequence creation and tuning. The Configuration Manager environment must be healthy, and MDT 2013 installed and integrated with CM12. We also need to have an image to deploy with our new Task Sequence, along with Drivers and Packages. For most small organizations, it’s pretty common to see included in the gold image all the corporate used free apps, like PowerPoint Viewer, and software that has been purchased for the entire company, such as Microsoft Office. Usually the image is created using MDT, as...