Windows 10 Upgrade with TS - Reboot control

[dyg]

Hi,

 

I'm upgrading our Windows 10 clients to 1703 build and i'm using a built-in task sequence in order to upgrade it.

I tried servicing plans and it works well but i want to upgrade a Displaylink (display) driver after OS upgrade because the new build needs a new driver... so i decided to use a task sequence.

 

I followed some posts from Niall (thank you!) and now i can advise to user, capture logs, upgrade multiple language (spanish & english), etc...

 

https://www.niallbrady.com/2016/05/21/how-can-i-deal-with-languages-in-the-upgrade-task-sequence-using-system-center-configuration-manager-current-branch/

 

but i have a doubt, when the OS upgrade process step starts it reboots the computer automatically, can the user control this reboot? 

For example, when you deploy the feature upgrade using a service plan a soft restart is requested to user, so when he reboots the computer the upgrade continues.

I want to improve more the user experience and give their this reboot control using a task sequence

 

can it be possible? 

 

thanks and regards

 

[Simon Whitfield]

Getting the exact same problem with SCCM 1802. We're trying to go from Win10 1703 to 1709 and have to use task sequences due to software we have that doesn't survive the inplace upgrade.

 

I set the restart step to 2 hours with a message giving users a warning to save work before it restarts. However it is the built in upgrade operating system step in the task sequence that reboots the computer, not the restart computer step that directly follows it.

 

This means that during the first phase of the upgrade the user can use the computer but it will restart without warning, the second phase of the upgrade then happens, where the computer is unusable. After this second phase when the task sequence starts back up, it then processes the restart step, and the user is then given the 2 hour warning, which is no good at this point.

 

If you look at the smsts logs for the command and switches that the upgrade operating task step passes to the Windows 10 setup.exe it includes the /noreboot switch. When running setup manually using that switch setup doesn't automatically restart the computer. There is something with the upgrade operating step that ignores the /noreboot switch and reboots without warning.

 

As further testing, I have removed the upgrade operating system step from the task sequence, and added a run command line step with the exact same switches that i got from the log file. This works in part, the task sequence now doesn't automatically reboot, it moves on to the restart computer step, so you are presented with the 2 hour warning. However after the Windows 10 upgrade completes its second phase, the task sequence doesn't start back up and continue on, so further customisations and app installs don't happen.

 

My next phase of testing, which I'm about to look into, is to fall back to the vNext upgrade scripts that MS provided for upgrading using SCCM 2012.

 

This is also logged on the TechNet forums - https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/38bcf4c9-36ff-4534-bb9c-42dc9ef122c2/sccm-upgrade-task-sequence-reboot-control?forum=ConfigMgrCBOSD

Edited April 26, 2018 by Simon Whitfield

[Simon Whitfield]

I can confirm when using the old scripts I can upgrade Windows 10 with a restart warning and then the task sequence continues on.