How can I deploy Windows 8.1 x64 to the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 using System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager ?

[tes-com]

Hello, The Deployment for my surface pro 3 with the Microsoft Dock Worked Fine (got about 20 Surface pro tablets in Production).

 

But !!

 

There is a firmware update.

 

Now i got a error that the network adapter is not found. Lucky it gave me the option to Retry. Then it goes on. So this looks like a driver bug.

 

Does anyone have the solution for this problem ?

 

Greetings

 

Ronald

[anyweb]

There is a firmware update.

 

Now i got a error that the network adapter is not found. Lucky it gave me the option to Retry. Then it goes on. So this looks like a driver bug.

 

 

can you expand on what you are saying here ? also include logs or a screenshot of the error please

[gbeaston]

Hey Anyweb,

This was a great post and I have successfully used it once. Now when I try to deploy a Surface using SCCM the touch screen does not work. I have tried installing the drivers post build and still no luck can you give any ideas why this isn't working?

 

Geoffrey Beaston

[anyweb]

no idea, which driver pack are you using and can you show me a screenshot of your device manager

[amb7247]

There is much good information here but I have a question to see if I can do what I hope it possible.

 

Ok, so, we buy surface pro 3 in our company. What I'd like to do is set it up to where, I can have the majority of all the software installed on a surface and have the start screen set up the way I like it. Then once all that is done, we hand the surface to a sales rep. I'd like to see if I can take that, and deploy it on to to the surfaces of the same make and model. Is it possible to do something like this? As I understand it, the Windows 8.1 key is stored in the UEFI BIOS.

 

Can this be possible? It would be nice to have a base setup, then add some programs after the fact. It would save a lot of time in terms of not having to download all windows updates when they can already be applied.

 

I wonder how it'll work with windows 10 around the corner.

 

Anyweb, do you have a procedure setup to capture an surface pro 3's image and using that image for deployment to other surfaces? Do you need to change the windows key or is that done automatically.

 

Yes, you can tell I'm a noob lol. We just wanted to see if it was possible to save time setting up the devices in the office when we hire new reps.

[anyweb]

don't capture the image directly from the surface pro 3, use virtual machines instead to build your master image, and capture it from there,

as regards customizing the start screen see here > http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/8101-using-system-center-2012-configuration-manager-part-13-deploying-windows-8-x64-with-custom-start-screen/

 

to build and capture windows 8.1 it's the same process as Windows 7 or less (with ConfigMgr) as described here > http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/6353-using-system-center-2012-configuration-manager-part-7-build-and-capture-windows-7-x64-sp1/

 

or use MDT to build your reference image as most people advise, you can setup a quick MDT infrastructure following my guides here > http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/forum/74-mdt/

 

hope that helps !

 

lastly, have you seen this yet ?

 

CM12 in a Lab - 5 video series on deploying the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 - available now !

[WinOutreach2]

There is much good information here but I have a question to see if I can do what I hope it possible.

 

Ok, so, we buy surface pro 3 in our company. What I'd like to do is set it up to where, I can have the majority of all the software installed on a surface and have the start screen set up the way I like it. Then once all that is done, we hand the surface to a sales rep. I'd like to see if I can take that, and deploy it on to to the surfaces of the same make and model. Is it possible to do something like this? As I understand it, the Windows 8.1 key is stored in the UEFI BIOS.

 

Can this be possible? It would be nice to have a base setup, then add some programs after the fact. It would save a lot of time in terms of not having to download all windows updates when they can already be applied.

 

I wonder how it'll work with windows 10 around the corner.

 

Anyweb, do you have a procedure setup to capture an surface pro 3's image and using that image for deployment to other surfaces? Do you need to change the windows key or is that done automatically.

 

Yes, you can tell I'm a noob lol. We just wanted to see if it was possible to save time setting up the devices in the office when we hire new reps.

 

 

Just a thought, but if you are only customizing the start screen and installing applications, you could do everything you need without any redeployment of the operating system. You could create a Post OS Installation Task Sequence in MDT that is configured for installing the applications you need and run that on each machine you need to configure.

 

Customizing the Start Layout is as easy as exporting the start layout and importing it with your task sequence, or better yet, using Group Policy. Note that if you import the start layout with a user account already active on the Surface Pro 3 the new layout will only take effect for new users, not the existing user. It is also important that the Start Menu shortcut links be present or the tiles from the layout will not appear.

 

Brandon

Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro

Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

[xbliss]

PS: Made sense to create new thread.. You site and forum is amazing and I wonder why it did not show up on my Google searches regarding issues for Surface Pro 3.

 

I will link to that thread here. I figured the MDT might be easier than SCCM for me.. But maybe you have a simpler way for this simple task.

 

Create/ Image/ Sysprep Win 8.1 & Win 10 VHDs WIMs for Native Boot on Surface Pro 3 for isolated activities without huge server setup?

[letsgoflyers81]

I need some help deploying a Surface Pro 3 in SCCM 2012 SP1 (no CUs installed).

 

I know this is not supported, but I managed to cobble together a solution which so far has worked, I'm just having trouble with one specific unit. Here's the method I used to get to this point:

 

• Use MDT 2013 to build and capture Windows 8.1 WIM which includes SP3 network drivers
• Use SCCM 2012 SP1 to create boot image, injecting SP3 network drivers
• Import WIM from MDT and use SCCM 2012 SP1 to create deploy task sequence
• Task sequence installs Surface Pro 3 update MSI package since importing drivers to create proper driver package does not work
• Other usual actions are performed such as enabling BitLocker, joining to domain, installing software packages, etc.

The deployment is done with boot media rather than PXE because I've had trouble getting it to work. In order to create the boot drive I had to combine files from the MDT boot drive and SCCM boot drive. The whole process is a Frankenstein combination of MDT and SCCM that is in no way supported, but surprisingly works. We're only doing this in a very limited pilot and so far all SCCM deployments have been done by me at my site.

 

My current problem is as follows. I had a new Surface shipped directly to a tech at another site. I distributed all the content needed to the local DP there and tried to walk him through the deployment. He created the boot drive, booted to it, diskparted the Surface, and selected the task sequence. After the WinPE environment is copied down from the network he's prompted to remove the drive and reboot. At this point it should reboot back into WinPE and continue with the deployment, that's how it works for me. But for him, it reboots directly to the BIOS if the USB drive is not inserted. I verified the hard drive has been partitioned and formatted properly and that the WinPE files have been downloaded. However it won't boot to the hard drive the way it's done on all the other Surfaces I've deployed with this method. The firmware is definitely outdated because it doesn't give the same number of boot order options, but I can't determine what version it is. The system date was also set to 2012, which I had to manually update in order for the task sequence to run at all. I'm stuck here, and I can't think of what to do next other than manually install Windows just to update the firmware and see if that helps.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, since I'd hate to have to boot up manually update firmware for every new Surface we deploy. Every other Surface that was deployed in SCCM was configured and updated manually first before we established this process, so this is the first true deployment from bare metal. I know the best answer will be to upgrade my SCCM environment to a supported version, but that's out of my hands and will not be happening overnight. In the mean time, I'm trying to do whatever I can to make this work. Thanks!

[anyweb]

that's how it works for me. But for him, it reboots directly to the BIOS if the USB drive is not inserted. I verified the hard drive has been partitioned and formatted properly and that the WinPE files have been downloaded. However it won't boot to the hard drive the way it's done on all the other Surfaces I've deployed with this method.

 

 

it won't boot to a USB drive because of a few factors such as

 

is the USB drive formatted with NTFS, if so, it won't work, UEFI boot must be FAT32

is the USB drive using an x86 boot image ? if so it won't work, UEFI deployments to the Surface Pro 3 must use an x64 boot image

thirdly, to boot to USB, shutdown the surface pro 3 correctly (start, shutdown) then power it on by pressing and holding VOLUME down, then briefly press the power button, it should then boot from the USB device