MDT 2012

New and Improved: Pre-provision user applications during OS deployment via Orchestrator and ConfigMgr 2012

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Last week I did a post about pre-provisioning user applications, based on group membership, during OS deployment, which I already thought was pretty cool. I got some nice positive feedback on that post, including a comment of my very well respected colleague and ConfigMgr MVP Kim Oppalfens. He said, “Nice find, but what if you have twenty applications?”. Well, my idea of last week would mean two task sequence steps per applications, so that’s not really an option for a lot of applications… I had to come up with something better. The biggest challenge about this is that Orchestrator can only return static variables, it’s not possible to return dynamically named variables from a runbook. This meant that the only option left, to really achieve …

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Using the power of Orchestrator to move a computer to a different OU via ConfigMgr 2012

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The power of Orchestrator 2012 to automate actions is getting bigger and bigger, as the community for it grows and by that the number of Integration Packs (IPs). Of course there are also IPs for ConfigMgr, from both Microsoft itself and the community (via CodePlex). Besides that there wasn’t a real integration between ConfigMgr and Orchestrator, yet, but with MDT 2012 Update 1 a really nice new cool feature was introduced. This feature is the Execute Runbook –step during a Task Sequence. It gives anyone, with or without real programming skills, more robust options during a Task Sequence, as long as an IP exist for the action anyone wants to perform. Just remember, lots of these IPs are created by the community. So deliver useful …

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Deploying Windows Server 2012 including Roles and Features with ConfigMgr 2012

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This week, for me, was all about deploying Windows Server 2012 (which is currently still in RC), with ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 (which is currently still in CTP) and MDT 2012 Update 1 (which is currently still in BETA). So it was one big test case, but it showed a lot of possibilities for the coming releases. For those who follow me on twitter this post will contain a lot more information about the short tweets that I already did the last week. For instance, the need for running your own Build-and-Capture Task Sequence got a lot smaller with Windows Server 2012 (and Windows 8), because the default install.wim will install on the C-drive ánd ConfigMgr 2012 brings Offline Servicing. So when you’re used to deploy …

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Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Beta is available!

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For those who didn’t read it on Twitter, Facebook or mail yet, MDT 2012 B1 is available for download! Some of the best things that are mentioned in the release notes, are that it supports ConfigMgr 2012 B2 and also still supports ConfigMgr 2007 SP2! Besides that it also supports the deployment of ALL operating systems from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 until now. So it only delivers extra’s! For more information, read here the mail of Microsoft Connect: Thanks for your ongoing interest and participation in the MDT beta review program. We hope you’ll take the time to preview and provide feedback on MDT 2012 Beta 1. Download the beta materials on Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/site14/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=8689 Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Beta 1 rides the …

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