The D-Spot (The Deployment Spot)

The deployment wizard was not showing any Task Sequences after an upgrade from MDT 2010 U1 to MDT 2012 beta2.

Of course I updated my Deployment Share after the upgrade. Updating a second time, and completely regenerate the boot images got my attention that I didn’t reimported the boot images into WDS.

After reimporting the new generated boot images with MDT 2012 my Task Sequences showed up and I was able to start deploying again!

So don’t forget to reimport your WinPE boot images after upgrading to MDT 2012!

I was deploying Windows ThinPC using MDT with a customer, and received this error:

Windows could not parse or process unattend answer file [C:\MININT\unattend.xml] for pass [windowsPE]. A component or setting specified in the answer file does not exist.

According to the MS forums this should be solved in MDT 2012 beta 1. So we upgraded to MDT 2012 beta 2, but unfortunately the error remains.

Deleting the <UpgradeData> node from the unattend.xml, like Michael mentioned, fixed the issue. Windows ThinPC deployed successful when this node was removed.

MDT 2012 Beta 2 is available for download on Microsoft Connect.  The most important changes are ConfigMgr 2012 compatibility, improved Lite Touch user experience and a nice and easy upgrade process! Read all about MDT 2012 b2 at the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Team Blog.

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WScript.Echo “Stay tuned at The D-Spot for some posts about the new beta product!”

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Recently we hosted an event about “Desktop optimisation – efficient windows 7 and office 2010 deployment – notes from the field”. This seminar not only listed many of the new features and functionality that are included in Windows 7 and Office 2010 but also answered many deployment questions including some notes from the field.

The result can be found here:

http://seminar.the-d-spot.org/Desktop optimisation – notes from the field – 17102011.pdf

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 beta 1 is available on Microsoft Connect! Join the beta program and play around with this upcomming MDT version. The biggest change in this release is SCCM 2012 support, but also other remarkable improvements are included in this new version!

New in this version

• System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012 support (console integration..).
• Improved Lite Touch user experience and functionality (brand new wizard and designer).
• Cross-platform deployment (using another WinPE architecture than the OS you’re deploying).
• Enhancements for partitioning with UEFI .
• Native VHD support (Deploy to VHD).
• Bugs fixes.

Downloads and other resources

Downloads:

• Download MDT 2012 beta 1 from MS Connect.

Resources:

• Technet Radio on MDT 2012.
• MDT tagged articles here on The D-Spot.