crane_IT

Ok, currently, I have our Deployment Share on our regular deployment server (MDT001) and I've created a Linked Deployment Share on a network location in our Northern branch. Their x86 Linked Deployment Share boot image is working and all the information seems to be pulling from our database (MDTDB) and populating the information. However, I'm trying to set them up with a x64 boot image for doing our Engineering Workstations, but it just sits and asks for a role. It seems to be seeing it enough to know which roles are available, but it's not seeing my database that tells it which role and which applications to pull from. I thought I've copied all the bootstrap.ini settings from the x86 image that does work, but it's still not working. Can anyone tell me what I might be missing? On a bigger picture, am I using the Linked Deployment Share as it was intended? Should I create a database and store it locally on the remote server in our Northern branch, and if so, how do I do that?

Kimmyel, Thanks for the reply. Are those 2 different solutions, or is it one solution? Like, you can either create a TS host, OR you can connect remotely, or are you saying you can connect remotely by creating a TS host. If so, do you have a link I can follow to do it? I appreciate the reply!

Currently, we have about 7 people who will RDP into the deployment server to add PC's to the database for imaging. For the most part, this was done because an annoyingly large portion of my day was spent adding systems to the database during our PC refresh where we were imaging 15-20 systems per day. I got so busy with that, I decided to expand the access. The problem I'm seeing now is that with RDP, we can only have 3 people max logged in at once and then you have to kick someone off. As the admin. I went to great pains to show people what to do when logged in so they didn't screw things up and to NEVER, under any circumstances, kick me out. Keeping in mind that they are IT people. Anyway, lately, I've been kicked out while updating linked deployment shares and it's frustrating that I have to go back in and lose all my stuff. So, my question. Can I set something up so that they don't RDP in and they can just add PC's to the database and nothing else? Can it be done through an MMC console and if so, how?

Disregard my last comment Peter. I figured out how to do it and it's done. Now I just need to keep MS Updates from rebooting my computers during "Install Applications" and I'll be set.

I may have come up with my own solution, but I'm doing testing now. I added a "net stop wuauserv" command line in the task sequence before "Install Applications". I also added a "Restart Computer" after "Install Applications". The restart should allow the update service to restart.

This happens to some systems and not others during Lite Touch. Once the OS is on, I have some applications scripted to run. During the 3rd or 4th application, the MS Updates windows pops up and says it's going to force the PC to reboot because of new updates, which is does and then causes the applications installing to die and I get the yellow screen at the end. Since it's supposed to be automated, no one is around all the time to see this happen. How do I supress the MS Updates from forcing the reboot after the base image is on?

Peter, can you explain what you mean by that and how this is done? I'm not sure what you mean.

The way I deploy systems is to use the thinnest image possible. Currently, my base image is simply the OS version off the disk and then all other settings and applications are scripted. I tried to do updates by enabling the Windows Update (Pre-Application Installation) and Windows Update (Post-Application Installation), but could never get it to work because someone else manages SCCM and I've asked to work with him on this, so we could combine efforts, but he never gets back to me. Long story....So, I started just downloading packages and injecting them into the image through MDT. However, the older the image gets, the more updates I have to download, and then some updates break the OS deployment, etc. Anyway, if you can help me with that, good, but why I'm really posting is because I want to put on Office 2007 SP3 AFTER Office 2007 is installed. Have you guys just scripted the install or how do you keep images up to date? All the research I've done points to the aforementioned parts of the Task Sequence (Windows Update (Pre-Application Installation) and Windows Update (Post-Application Installation), but like I said, I have NEVER been able to get that to work.

Peter, I've tried every variation of #2 I could find and I can get it to work under my own account, but not apply to all who log in.

edwin, What I do in this case is, go into my Device Manager and if I have a yellow question mark, go to Dell's site, find the driver that makes that yellow question mark go away and then add that into the driver packages as well. See if that helps.

I have an issue where I want other technicians to be able to RDP into my deployment server and add computers to the MDT database I've created. It's a simple task once I show them what to do, but I feel I've gotten the deployment server pretty well setup and the day-to-day task of adding computers to the database is simple enough with some training. However, I am trying to setup the new girl to do it and everything is OK until she clicks on Databases > Computers. When I do it, I can see all the 350+ computers we have, but she sees nothing when logged in under her account. I've changed a few things, but she still can't see them. I have done this in the past for another technician, but I just can't remember what I did to make him able to see the computers. I feel it's a permission issue, but I can't seem to remember. Any help is appreciated.

I just dealt with this for several days last week. Are you using a VLK, MAK or KMS key? The link below really helped me out. Read over it thoroughly and then pick which option you would like to try. I chose #2 and it worked. It has about 4 different options to try: http://blogs.technet.com/b/deploymentguys/archive/2009/03/30/deploying-windows-7-vl-with-mak-multiple-access-keys-using-mdt-2010.aspx

I agree with thadkew. I had this same issue and it's almost always been the fact that I didn't have the right NIC drivers for the hardware. Try that using DISM and see if it helps.

I am working on getting USMT to work to go from an XP machine to a Windows 7 machine. I created a "Standard Client Replace Task Sequence" and updated the deployment share. I boot to the XP machine and then browse to my deploymentshare\scripts and kick off LiteTouch.vbs. I watch where the transfer file is created and it does about 9.2GB then goes to "Capture Groups" and then to "Apply Windows PE"...and this is where I have problems. I get the error message below: The logical drive could not be determined from the disk and partition FAILURE (7713): 1: Could not Determine Partition to deploy to Litetouch deployment failed, Return Code = -2147467259 0x80004005 Below this are a bunch more "Failed to run the action:" items, but I think they're probably all caused by the original failure. From the research I've done, I think it has something to do with the small diagnostic partition on this Dell D630. I went into the LTIApply.vbs and modified it by hardcoding the "DestinationLogicalDrive" to C: so hopefully it skips over the diagnostic partition. I posted on here to see if anyone else has had to deal with this and what they've done to get around it. I talked to the guy who setup our old deployment server and he recalls modifying some of the scripts, but he doesn't remember details. Any help is apprecaited.

I got 3. working. cacls "C:\Program Files\...\folder" /e /grant everyone:F. I thought I had already tried that, but I guess not.

I have my Windows 7 image come down to the new Dell E6420 laptops we have and even before Lite Touch starts installing applications, the "Found New Hardware - NVIDIDA High Definition Audio" window pops up and tells me that the drivers installed successfully. The problem is that it halts my application installs, so you essentially have to babysit Lite Touch. Once the FNH window is closed, everything else seems to go OK. I found a few scripts that look like they should work, but do not. One was called wizkilla.vbs which you can google and find. I tried putting a restart AFTER "Tatoo" in my task sequence, but that doesn't seem to work either. I've been working on this most of today and can't get it figured out.

I have Windows 7 deploying the way I want and now I'm working on the finer details listed below. 1. Show "My Computer" icon on all users desktops without making it a shortcut. I want the real thing. 2. Once "My Computer" icon IS on all users, I want it to show as "%username% on %computername%". This was really easy to do in XP, but I still haven't found a way to do it for all users in Win 7. 3. I have a folder that needs to allow "Everone" Full access. I tried using icacls, but that hasn't worked. I'm still experimenting with that one. 4. I want to have "Automatically Detect Settings" unchecked for all users in IE settings. There are probably more that I can't think of right now. I know I could take care of all of this by using a reference image, but we're going as thin as possible with the "base image" being JUST Win 7 ent. w/ SP1 and nothing else. Everything else is scripted which is going to be easier in the long run, but harder on me here in the beginning. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Ok, just after I posted the original, I realized that although I updated the deployment image for the WDS server, I forgot to add it to the boot list. Duhh!! so, I made the bootstrap.ini the same as the one on the Deployment Server that works now, and the "Run Deployment Wizard" and the "Enter credentials" are gone, but it still isn't reading the database to see that I've already assigned it a role and to auto-choose the task sequence, etc. I will look at my customsettings.ini and see. Thanks for the input though Chris, I'll keep looking.

I have my Deployment server setup pretty well in my location and I want to setup a Linked Deployment Share for our team in Minnesota. As a test, I created a linked deployment share on our local NAS which replicated fine. Here's my issue. When I did the LDS, it of course created a new LiteTouchPE_x86.wim. I added that wim to our WDS server and it boots fine. The problem is, it doesn't read my database. As a test, I mounted the LiteTouchPE_x86.wim and modified the bootstrap.ini to include credentials, but it still prompts for the credentials and doesn't act like it sees the database. So what am I missing? This PC is in the database just like any other one. I can manually go through and it'll pick up task sequences, but the way I normally do it (not from the LDS), it sees the database and pulls all the information from it without issue. Any ideas why my Linked Deployment Share isn't seeing my deployment database? Also, every time I replicate changes, it wipes out the LiteTouchPE_x86.wim and I have to mount and re-add the credentials and some other answer stuff to my bootstrap.ini. What's up with that?

I blew away the task sequence and recreated it and now it works.

So I have an image of a GX780 coming down fine to the hardware, but the applications just don't install. I never get a screen saying 0 errors, 0 warnings or anything. I'm not sure what's going on. Any thoughts as to why the applications wouldn't kick off? It does on every other image.

Jmoody, now that IS cool! thadkew, thanks for that link as well!

thadkew, we use Dell's as well (E6410 laptops and GX780 towers). Can you point me in the direction of the BIOS tool? We want it to turn CompuTrace on in the BIOS for the laptop and add the Onboard NIC and "Enable w/ PXE" to ours. I know you can have Dell preconfigure it, but if there is a tool that does it, I'd love to try it out.

Ok, now I'm at a total loss. I added 3 applications back as a test and now I get 0 errors and 0 warnings. I have NO idea what is going on. I'm running it on a 2nd machine to see if it does the same. This one is a head scratcher.

We did it that way in the past with our XP images. Base OS + drivers for that particular make/model + base applications. Now, with Windows 7, I'm setting up a new deployment server with the goal of just a BASE Windows 7 image and everything else is scripted. Getting "everything else scripted" is the hard part, not necessarily with applications, but different settings. Due to something corporate did, we have to uncheck "Automatically detect settings" for each user, so I have to figure out how to do that. Normally, with XP, we (I) would've just put the image on a reference PC, made the change and copied that profile to the default user and recaptured the image. Can't really do that with what I want to do. The way I'm doing it is harder up front, but saves time in the end.