SCCM 2012 R2 - MDT 2013 - Questions

[WAZZIE]

Good morning all,

 

Firstly, I would like to thank niall and all the contributors here to the fantastic amount of information available.!

 

Next - I would like to ask a few questions, after detailing the test environment I have installed.

 

OK, so I have a lab setup, running 2012server,sql2012,sccm2012r2 (CAS and PRI)

runs fine captures and deploys win7 and win81 without issue, using vanilla sccm task sequences.

I have these TS's created and targeted accordingly.

capture win7

capture win8

deploy win7

deploy win8

These work a treat.

 

I have now added MDT 2013 into the mix to have a play.

 

I have now created an MDT Client Task sequence, which does everything my vanilla TS's did, but is more verbose, I.E. asks me for various things (OS, passwords, bitlocker, etc.) but it works a treat

 

So I now have 5 TS's - one of which is MDT template based.

I have tweeked this MDT TS in the UDI designer to add both my images win7 and win81, in the hope that the single MDT TS can be used to install either win7 or win8 depending on what is selected by the user when they PXE and start the MDT TS.

 

My MDT TS still works and the usual UDI questions get asked, I get prompted to select either Win7 or WIN81, but it only installs win7.

 

Upon further inspection of the MDT TS, the apply operating system step is set specifically to the WIN7 image I specified when I created the MDT TS.

 

So I can see why its doing this, but have no idea how to achieve user selected OS within the UDI.

 

After all this: My question is...

Can I use a single MDT TS to accomplish this task?

If so - what have I done wrong.lol

 

or do I create another MDT TS with the win8 image in, deploy both to same collection, and have user pick which to run before they get asked the UDI Questions.

 

 

Is this clear to anyone out there !!???

 

 

Anyway - hope this makes some sense, and hope someone knows where I am going wrong, or what I am not understanding about MDT !!!

 

Thanks for your time.

Regards WAZZIE !

[WAZZIE]

Sorry - I have posted this twice !? finger trouble this morning.

[anyweb]

i'll fix the dup

[anyweb]

I wouldne combine capture and deploy into the same ts and neither would i combine two different os's into one ts, however if you have different versions of one os (like a thin and fat image) then you could combine them into the one ts for simplicity and use variables in a HTA frontend to decide which image gets installed, works great for PXE but could be troublesome for Prestaged or standalone media

[WAZZIE]

Morning Mr.Brady.

 

Thanks for the de-dup fix.

 

I have kept the TS's separate for deploy and capture, sorry if I didn't make this clearer, but your wealth of experience here will only make me remember never to even contemplate that as an option.

 

So it looks like I am doing it right per se, but as you say, shouldn't have two different os's available in one UDI TS.

 

So the answer is 2 MDT TS's one with 7 image - one with 81 image - take out the option to choose the OS from the UDI (as you will have already picked your poison as such. Then i'm good to play with MDT Further.

 

Thanks for the swift response.

[anyweb]

i'm not saying you can't mix two os's i'm just saying i wouldn't, it would involve more than just the os, as drivers are dependant on os also, not to mention things like .net35 features for Windows 8.x

[Iroqouiz]

I have one TS for all my images, works great. I use a lot of conditions on the different steps. To choose the correct image I have several "Apply Operating System" steps, each with a condition to only run if task sequence variable OSDImageName equals "MyWin7Imagename" (which is set after that image is chosen in the HTA).

[WAZZIE]

Thanks guys, plenty of food for thought, and words of experience.

 

I will have a play, maybe try the logic route via 2x apply os sections, but I can imagine this gets quite involved with conditions at most steps after the Apply OS is equated correctly.

 

Its all about playing at present, try it, break it, and repeat.

 

also excuse me for being a bit dim, but what is an HTA what does it stand for.

is it the dialog boxes I see in my UDI or something else.?!

once again, thanks!

[anyweb]

HTA=hypertext application, a web page basically, more info here

[Peter33]

I have one TS for all my images, works great. I use a lot of conditions on the different steps. To choose the correct image I have several "Apply Operating System" steps, each with a condition to only run if task sequence variable OSDImageName equals "MyWin7Imagename" (which is set after that image is chosen in the HTA).

 

Same here. But there is still to mention that you will need at least 2 different TS if you deploy your OS in UEFI mode, which i don't at the moment. One for 32Bit and one for 64Bit. No way around there.