WinOutreach2

Simply create media using MDT from the Media node of your deployment share. See Step 7 in the Deploy Windows 8.1 from a USB stick Step-by-Step. Once you generate the offline installer files you simply copy them to a USB stick that has an active partition (you can set the partition to active with diskpart). Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros at TechNet

I’d just like to point out that there is no need to integrate with ConfigMgr (although it certainly doesn’t hurt anything), a standard client deploy task sequence in MDT alone will prompt the technician with a list of applications available for installation. You should also note that you can use customsettings.ini with some logic to automate selection of apps. For example if you know your accounting department is running all Model XYZ systems, you can have MDT detect Model XYZ and automatically select the appropriate selection profile and task sequences for deployment. You can also use IP addresses, MAC addresses, etc. See How to manage Out-of-Box Drivers with the use of Model Specific Driver Groups in Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Update 1 from the Ask the Core Team Blog. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros at TechNet

It sounds like an app was installed for a user but wasn’t provisioned in the image (for example if you update an app via the Windows Store, a newer version becomes installed for that user than the provisioned version). See Sysprep fails after removing or updating Windows built-in Windows Store apps at Microsoft Support. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

The recommended way of doing things is to create a VM in a virtual environment (Hyper-V VM) as the reference system. This avoids complex driver installs and ensures maximum cross-platform compatibility of the resulting image. This is in conjunction with a modern deployment tool like MDT or SCCM that separately manages drivers, images, and applications for deployment granularity and automation. If you’ve never seen it, I’d definitely recommend the Surface Pro 3 Deployment and Administration Guide. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

The short answer is that yes, you can use a WIM to bypass the need for a GPT or MBR VHD by capturing your MBR VHD and deploying it to the VHD of your choice. The two installs are not so different, see Converting Windows BIOS installation to UEFI on the TechNet Wiki. I have to ask though, why are you using VHD boot on the Surface Pro 3s? Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

Another point to make is… 12GB is really quite big for a WIM. You already pointed out that you’re using MDT, are you making use of MDT’s ability to install applications, drivers, etc. rather than baking everything into the WIM? Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

Does your USB drive appear as a fixed drive like a Windows To Go certified drive? This is a requirement for a multiple partition USB (as documented in the Ask Core Team blog provided by anyweb). Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

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

That’d be a long list, and it depends on what you’re comparing it to. Some of the key things I like to mention include: MDT is available for free. MDT can easily scale from deploying a few systems to deploying tens of thousands of systems. MDT can integrate into most existing deployment solutions by importing the images into MDT (or integrating MDT with SCCM). MDT allows for deployment to disparate hardware via driver management. MDT can produce diverse environments due to independent management of applications during deployment. Due to driver and application management, MDT can greatly reduce the number of images required by an organization. MDT is exceptionally flexible. Once you’ve built a deployment share and become familiar with MDT you can copy components to quickly prepare for any deployment scenario. If you are comparing MDT to SCCM, the answer is more that MDT provides a large number of wizards, prebuild task sequences, and scripts that greatly simplify the deployment process and extend functionality. I’d highly recommend the Windows 8.1 Deployment Jump Start if you haven’t seen it, some deployment experts like Michael Niehaus and Johan Arwidmark explore the functionality of deployment with MDT and really help to illustrate its benefits. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

It sounds as though you were able to resolve the issue. This is documented in the TechNet article How to Manage Operating System Images and Installers in Configuration Manager. If you’re trying out deployment for the first time and trying to understand the recommended procedure for deployment, you may want to give the Surface Pro 3 Deployment and Administration Guide a read through. The document provides a step-by-step walkthrough of configuring a deployment environment using the recommended procedure and is applicable to any Windows clients, not just Surface. All the deployment resources you might need can be found at the Deploy Windows 7 and Deploy Windows 8 pages at Windows for IT Pros on TechNet. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

You may also want to review this KB article: WDS does not start on a PXE enabled remote Distribution Point in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

It is recommended to create your reference image(s) with MDT. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet

A basic step by step can be found here: Deploying Windows 8.1 from a USB Stick. Note that the version of WinPE does not have to correspond with the version being installed. For example if you are using the Windows ADK for Windows 8.1 to provide the tools that MDT controls, you would have WinPE 5.0. Though you are deploying Windows 7, WinPE 5.0 is built on the code base of Windows 8.1 and thus would need drivers compatible with Windows 8.1. Once you have supplied the drivers for WinPE, as Tommy Herman stated, you would need to update the deployment share to regenerate the boot media with these drivers included. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro The Springboard Series on TechNet

As Peter pointed out, the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) is the better fit for your described environment. Even with ConfigMgr, it is highly recommended to use MDT integration for Operating System Deployment (OSD). If you haven’t seen it yet, I would highly recommend the Windows 8.1 Deployment Jump Start. One tip I would recommend for the scenario out outlined is to remember that it is easy to manage multiple deployment shares, at heart they are a simple file share. A typical configuration would be a lab deployment share and a production deployment share, where the lab deployment share is primarily virtual and used to configure the base images, test new task sequences, etc. The production deployment share is used to join the corporate domain, install applications for different departments and configurations, holds drivers for various production machines, etc. In your case, it may even be worth it to have multiple production deployment shares for different customers where each share can hold different application configurations and join different domains. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro The Springboard Series on TechNet

In the deployment task sequence, uncheck the box for “Create extra ‘Active’ partition” under Preinstall, New Computer only, Format and Partition Disk. Unchecking this box essentially instructs MDT to follow the process outlined in the TechNet Magazine Article Understand (and Get Rid of) the Mysterious Small Partition. Be aware that if you are deploying GPT partitions on UEFI, there is a second hidden partition which is required. Details on the partitions and their uses and requirements can be found in the TechNet article Understanding Disk Partitions. For more information on MDT and deployment of Windows 8, be sure to check out the page Deliver and Deploy Windows 8 from the Springboard Series on TechNet. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro The Springboard Series on TechNet