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Windows 7 Deployment - MDT 2010 and/Or WDS?

Hi I have installed MDT2010 (sp1) on a 2008R2 server and the various components (WAIK)

I added the DVD boot image and then created a reference image.
I placed the boot image in WDS.
I then customised the reference image and sysprep/captured it.

I am able to get a bare metal machine or existing xp machine on the network to boot via F12 into the WDS wizard and the have W7  custom image installed.

This however is only one at a time.

I now want to do say 50 XP Pc's and with as lite a touch as possible i.e all automated.

I haven't used any unattend stuff thus far or even doen much to my boot.ini or custom settings.

I have 2 questions:

1.  Does the custom install  image need to be loaded into WDS or can I get multiple machines to just boot from WDS then use MDT to get the image?  When I tried loading the Install image it then wouldn't recognise the boot image so had to use the standard windows boot image!?

2.  Where should I be editing the unattend stuff?  I heared it needs to be in 2 places?  MDt and WDS?
I don't want to have to enter the domain or partition or credentials, time zone, or any of that!

Many thanks to anyone who can assist.

Cheers
Ian
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Hi thanks for that answer - that's exactly what I wanted to hear that MDT will do the job with Multicast!

At present I only have WDS doing the PXE anyway - but glad I can multicast using MDT!

There are 3 things I want to stop however and have automated.

1. The welcome screen where you click start/run deployment wizard - would like that to start automatically.
2. Enter credentials to access network shares (I use domain admin for this - this won't impact users no?) - again i'd liek automation.
3. Languages default to US and Time I want GMT UK.

There seems to be the custom settings.ini, bootstrap.ini, task sequence, unattend.xml - do these overlap?  Should I use one/all/some?

Many thanks
Ian
1).  You could either integrate SCCM 2007 to do Zero touch deployments, or you can use a custom deployement task.  You can start with a Standard client task sequence and modify it.  We actually have it configured that Desktop support techs can navigate to the MDT share and run litetouch.vbs and re-image or upgrade user's computer and save his/her's settings and re-install the installed applications.  For new computer installs, we have MDT using a database that is tied into our ordering system.  So when a tech goes to build a new system, they pull the machine from the box, plug it into the network PXE boot it and then Scan the barcode on the machine and it build the machine with the OS, names it and adds the appropriate apps that we specific when ordered.  Quite slick.

2).  DA creds will be fine.  You can configure each MDT share with the creds you want and users will be able to access aocordingly.  Once again, custom task sequences can remove many prompts.

3)  Time zone and language can be set with the customsettings.ini file.  Just google it and you can see what you can configure.
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