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You need to have completed Part 1 before starting this part.


Create and then Update distribution points for the MDT Server packages

Now that we have created the Task Sequence, packages files and folders necessary to support the Server deployment we need to make sure to create and then update distribution points for each MDT Server package, the Configuration Manager Client Installation package has already been pushed out to the distribution points so we don't need to do that again.

Expand Microsoft MDT Server Settings files and right click on distribution points, click new distribution points and when the wizard starts click next.





Select the standard distribution point only and click next, then close when done.



Right click the Distribution point and choose upadte distribution points,



answer yes at the confirmation screen



Repeat the above (create distribution points and then update them) for Microsoft MDT Server Source Files.

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Editing the Task Sequence

The Task Sequence is like a list of instructions telling our installer how to install the OS (in this case Windows Server 2008), you will probably want to customise several of the actions in the default task sequence. To modify the task sequence, right click the Server Task Sequence we created in Part 1 and choose edit



The task sequence will then be displayed



We could choose any of the categories on the left side and view the appropriate options tab on the right pane,

Set the Administrator Password

In the left pane of the Task Sequence click on the Post Install heading, and select Apply Windows Settings, select Enable the account and specify the local administrator password, enter a strong password and click apply. If you don't do this then you won't be able to logon to the server if something goes wrong.

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Apply drivers to the image

If we wanted to apply drivers to our server, we could select the Auto Apply Drivers option in the PostInstall section of the task sequence and configure it to point to where our drivers are stored.

We could use this for video/audio/whatever as long as the drivers and driver packages have been created first and distributed to the standard distribution points.





To troubleshoot drivers not getting installed on your server check that:-

1. You have Created a Driver Package and added your drivers to it

2. Assigned that package to a Distribution Point

3. Make sure the Distribution Point(s) have been updated.




TIP: When testing drivers in a working Task Sequence, only add ONE driver at a time, then test if it causes any problems by doing a full deployment, often times a driver can break a task sequence so adding many at a time will make it hard to find out which one is causing the problem without examing the SMSTS.log file.

For detailed info on Targetting drivers see this Technet Article.

Note: The Driver Packages folder (which you create and share to hold the driver packages..) must have the following permissions
Creator=Owner
Everyone=Reader
System=Co-owner

in the above example, System refers to the SYSTEM account of the COMPUTER that has SCCM running on it, make sure that SYSTEM also has NTFS write priveledges to the drivers package share

read here for more info

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Adding Server Roles and Features

With the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit installed and MDT integration added to SCCM you are also given the opportunity to install and configure server roles and features.


Note: There is a bug in MDT when adding roles and features to Windows Server 2008 64bit, they won't get executed at all unless you perform the following workaround.

If you are deploying Windows Server 2008 X86 however, continue below as normal:-

In the Task Sequence, select State Restore in the left pane, and highlight Install Software.


Click on the Add drop down menu at the top of the Task Sequence, and select MDT from the choices available, then select Install Roles and Features.


Note:If the MDT section does not appear then you most likely have not added Microsoft Desktop Toolkit integration to SCCM 2007.



In the example below we will configure our Task Sequence to make this Windows Server 2008 an Active Directory Domain Controller.

In the Task Sequence, select Active Directory domain controller, click Apply when done



Now that they are added, you will want to configure them, so lets configure Active directory domain services first by clicking on the Add drop down menu followed by MDT and then Configure ADDS.



enter your choices from those available and note that the drop down menu (which has Forest pre-selected) will decide what options are available to you depending on what you pick.



If you want to configure where to store the AD database, logfiles and sysvol and other advanced options then click on the Advanced button.




click Apply when done and then click Ok to exit from editing the Task Sequence.


Continue on to the next Part >>