Windows Deployment Services, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, and Windows Automated Installation Kit

This episode on winsrvtuts is HUGE. The video lasts about 43 minutes and offers complete coverage of Windows Lite Touch deployments. The technologies we will be using include:

Windows Deployment Services (Windows Server 2008 R2)
The Microsoft Deployment Tool Kit
The Windows Automated Installation Kit

In addition we will discuss the config.xml file needed for silent Microsoft office 2010 installation, and packaging applications for installation on the back end of out Windows 7 lite touch deployments. The big thank you needs to go out to Jordan from the Green Bay area for the suggestion on this video. Hopefully this will give you some answers you were looking for and then some.

All of the links and sample config files are located over on the website for you to access:

http://winsrvtuts.com/2012/01/windows...

As always if you like the video please subscribe to our youtube channel and check out what our sponsors have to offer.

Thank you to all the subscribers who write in with questions and comments they are greatly appreciated. If you would like to send us a message please do so on our website at:

http://winsrvtuts.com/contact-winsrvt...
please follow along on twitter: @winsrvtuts

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Closed Caption:

thanks for joining us here on this
episode of winter boots . com
thanks for everybody that's been doing
the the videos
this week's video is actually a pretty
comprehensive deployment methodology for
windows products
this is think you should go out to
jordan from the green bay area
he gave me the idea for this video and
at first i was just going to do a series
on windows deployment services which
you'll be seeing we're going to use part
of but it doesn't necessarily allow the
deployment of operating systems with
installed application and gives kind of
light touch
user flexibility to install the OS with
with applications
so in this video what we're actually
going to be doing is we are going to be
deploying windows 7 64 bit with
microsoft office and then that snare
agent that we've seen before and a lot
of the methodologies that you'll see in
this video you could use with other
sorts of applications so you're not
limited just to you know
microsoft office or snare or something
like that with the tools that you'll be
seeing as long as the application you're
trying to install on top of your
operating system has some command line
options for installation you'll actually
be able to roll out these packages on
all of your machines it really easy for
the users to do this is very similar to
how we deploy our workstations and
laptops in our organization
so it's gonna be a long video I hope I'm
able to get through this all in one
setting if it runs too long we'll break
it out into two pieces
but Don let's get started what we have
as a base is we have our our server here
and as usual we are going to be using a
Windows Server 2008 r2
it is in our domain now this server just
happens to be called deployment
and what we're going to do is we are
going to be using two pieces one is the
microsoft deployment toolkit
this is a 2010 version is a 64-bit
version if you go to the website i will
have the link for you to download this
and this is a fairly complicated
tutorial so i'll have a written kind of
procedural document that you can follow
as well so we're going to be using this
Microsoft deployment toolkit and then we
are also going to be using on the WDS
windows deployment options so we're
going to start writing and get to it
then I'm going to kind of explain how
things work with this as we go for four
times sake
so as you can see we are going to this
select windows deployment services and
we're actually going to select file
services as a pretty bare server
we're going to install these roles and
there are two options there is the
deployment server which gives you the
functionality of the windows deployment
services and then the transport server
which will give you
most importantly it gives you a couple
other things but multi casting
so we're multi casting would be really
great is let's say you have 25
workstations or a hundred workstations
or 200 workstations that you want to
deploy in your environment and you don't
want to saturate the bandwidth on your
Ethernet segment if you your switches
and routers are multicast capable
you will have essentially one broadcast
per se but it's actually a multicast and
all of your hosts will pick up on this
one multicast section so that's kind of
just a rough breakdown of these two
options are going to select next
and just going to select a file server
we're going to have some file shares
that we're gonna deploy our are
operating system images from go next and
do install so this portion is very very
easy
I'm just as a heads up especially when
we get into the operating system
installations
i'm actually going to be trying to cut
out a lot of the time where you're just
sitting and waiting for things to
install its ok now you can see we have
windows deployment services set up its
not configured yet in our file service
before we go any further I'm going to
install microsoft deployment toolkit
it's a pretty straightforward
installation just going to do entire
features
just make sure you've got everything and
install yes
now what you're actually going to
discover as we go through this is that
we're actually going to be building the
most everything in this deployment
toolkit
also as you can see here I've got a
folder called windows 7 x64 source
so what I did is I i just copied
everything from my windows seven DVD on
to this folder onto the local hard drive
so it would be faster so I'm not pulling
information off a DVD and that's just to
speed things up
I would actually recommend that you do
the same thing just a little bit about
this computer on
we have our local operating system disk
and then we have another hard drive here
sexually virtual driver in vmware and
this is going to be the deployment share
that we're going to be using so just
going to minimize here now what we're
going to be doing is you can see that we
have the server installed but it's not
configured so what we're going to do is
we're going to configure server select
next and what we're going to do is we
are going to browse to that was that
drive that is the e drive here we're
going to leave leave most of the
defaults we might have to make this
okay so we just selected re dr e remote
install that's going to be our share
that w dds is going to use and we have a
couple options here
do not respond to any client computers
it affects of effectively allows us to
configure the server but it wont service
anything respond only to known client
computers or respond to all computers
known and unknown but require
administrator approval for unknown
computers so we're going to select this
option and what you're going to see is
so all the computers that pixie boots
so it's a requirement by your clients
when they pixie boots and when they
request
the operating system in an install from
this deployment server this deployment
server will tell us that we have clients
ready for an install but they're waiting
for us to improve that approve them and
you'll see that
select next it's going to copy some
files that we need here
ok and we're not going to add images to
the server now because we're actually
going to be using on this deployment
workbench to build our images
ok so we're just going to finish this
let's take a quick look at what we have
here
so this is our install images we don't
have anything in here and we don't have
any boot images now it's it's really
important to understand the difference
between install images in boot images if
you're familiar with the boot PE
environment the pre executable
environment that windows uses to kind of
bootstrap your systems
this is what you're looking at here on
in it's an image that will use and will
send it down via tftp so the trivial FTP
protocol to our workstations when they
request the operating system install so
that's like the the barts boot disk if
you've heard of that the install images
is actually the OS and that is what will
be pushing down to our workstations to
install and this will actually work for
windows server 2008 and r 2 as well
under this pending devices tab this is
where we will see the work stations that
are ready for on an install
ok so this is where we'll go to approve
them on multicast transmissions
if you see if we create this will just
to test
this will give all we don't have any
image groups i'll show you that after we
can create some scenarios where we'll
wait for 10 computers to boot up and
request an install and then the install
will fire off
let's say when we have 10 2500 computers
already at one time to receive this
install package
so this will give you just a brief
overview of of how this is done
drivers just for the sake of time
most of the time for a workstation
computer windows will be ok on drivers
I'll leave that for you to look up on
your own for any special drivers that
you may have on your system
so this gives you a little introduction
to the WDS portion
ok now what we're going to do is we're
going to go over to this deployment
workbench and this is actually where
were we have to pull down one more thing
the windows automated tool kit so we
have that automated tool kit and what
I'm going to do is it comes in the form
of an iso file and do let me browse here
internal data downloads this is the
automated tool kit and there are
different versions of automated tool
kits for windows vista-7 etc etc so make
sure that you are downloading the right
one for your particular client so we're
going to load that in the dvd-rom Drive
and as you can see it's going to start
up and start running going
install it and as you can see here
there's a couple of options on
step-by-step deployment etc etc
what we're concerned with is windows aik
set up because we want to install this
is going to run through this installer
next
agree
going to leave it for everybody
again this is a pretty straightforward
installation
ok so if you're like me and went and got
a cup of coffee welcome back
alright so the automated tool kit has
been successfully installed so we're
going to close this out
close this sound is here all right let's
fire this up one more time
deployment workbench
ok so this is our work bench all right
and and this upper section is mostly
documentation i would definitely
recommend at your leisure going through
taking the time to look through this
look through the documentation various
news components that they have things
like that
so what we had here we're going to
create a new deployment share
as you can see the result remnant from
what I was testing this lab but we're
going to create a new deployment share
right and we're going to put it again on
that you drive and we're just going to
call it
II deployment share we might have to
make it okay
and it's going to do that fine and we'll
call this deployment share
yeah sure deployment share dollar
actually just maybe for the sake of
typing we'll just do des dollar
ok and we can give it a description
whatever you feel is appropriate for
your environment and ask if an image
should be captured
sure what we're going to do acts yeah
sure will do that and next ask user to
set the local administrator password
sure ask user for product key
okay so we got a little summary of what
we're going to do here and this is going
to run through and start that process
ok we're going to finish this here now
what were presented with under here is
represented with a couple of options
right so applications will be anything
that we want to install into our
operating system operating systems I'm
sure you can guess what this is and task
sequences task sequences are pretty
important it's actually going to be what
puts together everything I guess you
could say it's putting together the
operating system with the application
things of that nature out of box drivers
again you can just do import drivers and
you can put in that directory things of
that nature but we don't really want to
worry about that for right now
ok so what we're going to do now is
we're going to start off by importing a
new operating system and you can see
here we just right click on operating
system important new operating system
ok and now you're going to be presented
with a couple of different options if we
were to have imported an image into our
windows deployment services
I'm server over here we could import
them from here but we haven't done that
yet because we actually want to create
what we're going to do in the workbench
so full set of source files and this is
basically what we're going to be working
with here
like I said I copy the install files
from the windows seven DVD to my local
hard drive
I'm gonna go next i'm going to point to
that directory so i'm going to go to the
computer and I have my eDrive here and
then i have my directory there
select ok
next and what I'm going to do is I want
to give this a specific directory name
so we'll do this because it will
actually help you if you give this a
really vivid name where to find certain
files that you're going to be using in
your windows deployment server
so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to be
doing custom install this will help us
find some of these files that will need
to select next next now this is going to
copy these files from our source
directory to our next directory
you could have also done a move which
would be a little bit faster but just
for the sake of it i just did a copy
now come back after these are finished
cop
ok so that is this is finishing up just
take a look and see what's going on here
on copying e windows this source
directory to our e deployment share
so wherever you were pulling these files
from essentially this would be your
source and this is telling you where
your destination is so as you can see
everything was added successfully we're
going to select finish and this is now
going to populate our operating systems
now if you've ever worked with windows 7
on a DVD install you probably know that
what you actually have is all of the
different operating systems on the
single CD and as you can see here that's
exactly what we were presented with it
but we don't need home basic in home
premium so essentially what we're going
to do is we're just going to delete
those because we don't even want to be
bothered with them
so we're going to just get him out of
here and we're actually also going to be
deleting ultimate as well we're just
going to be dealing with professional
now if you needed ultimate that's fine
you could run with this same exact
process then i'm going to use with
professional as you could with ultimate
just going to delete it
just to get it out of there we want to
keep things neat and tidy
and I want to give this a little bit of
a moron
easy to digest name so I want to just do
windows 7 professional
ok so this is what we have here we've
got windows seven professional and on
this is what we'll be working with now
what we want to do is we want to figure
out what sort of applications we want to
install with this operating system
okay now this is going to be a little
bit different
based on what application you are
installing most people will probably
want to install microsoft office so that
is an example that we're going to use
here and I don't know if your work
environment is like mine but essentially
what we have at our work environment we
have a site license for our operating
systems in our software things like that
and they're out on a network share and
people have read access so that's
exactly what we're going to do we are
going to install our application we're
not going to bundle the source files
with our OS they're going to be out in a
network share
ok so you would need a network share
somewhere out it could be this server
that you're working from it could be
anywhere but you need to share out on
your network
i'm going to select next and we're going
to be installing microsoft office 2010
10
just fill in some of these values here
next
now on this is going to be something
that you'll need to pay attention to and
something that you will need to do a
little bit of a kind of reading on your
own depending what your environment is
like so i'm going to walk you through
this but you're still probably going to
have to modify this to your environment
so the syntax for this will be something
like this
so what do we have here is I went out to
my application server in this case it's
2k8 are two appt a one and i have the
share out here and i'm going to go
office 64 so again what I've done is off
the office CD
I've just copied these files over to a
network share
so the install path is going to be this
right here and if you're familiar with
the windows environment
this is what's called a UNC path so we
have our server name fish the the drive
the directory and the executable
so we're going to copy that and will
just paste it here now for microsoft
office when you're automating and
install there's something called the
config.xml file
all right and what we're going to do is
we're going to tell this setup . exe to
go look for that file so we're going to
use /a config now we're going to go back
to the share here and i'm going to show
you where that's at
so in this office directory
you will see that there is a folder
called put pro plus R ww
and in here there is a config . xml file
so we're going to get this directory
here we're going to do config . xml and
we're going to copy this whole thing
now what I'm going to do is I'm going to
post an example of my config . xml file
and maybe a sample one to download
I'm so you can see it what you will need
to do is you will need to enter your
license key if you have a site license
something like that for your specific
environment
ok but this is where you need to go so
the syntax that you're going to need to
fill out here is the share where you're
going to store the executable forward
slash config and then that UNC name to
that config . xml file now the working
directory
the easiest way to do this will give me
go c program files that will just be the
simplest place to put it
and since this is a 64-bit install we
don't need to go to that X that x86
directory that is for legacy you know
x86 programs
so this is what you have here you have
the unc share where your setup . exe is
forward slash config and then the unc
share and mapping to that config . xml
file that's very important
so go next
and next and that's it that's how you
create this new application path here
and now what you see is we have
microsoft office 2010
now just to show you that this is not
just a microsoft thing we're going to do
another application if you are with us
for our snare installs running syslog on
a Windows Server we're going to install
snare silently as well
so for this this is intersect Alliance
snare and go next and from the command
line
we're going to go back out to that
application server and this time we are
going to run this executable here and
again I'm just copying and pasting I
know my applications out here and I just
happened to know that in order to do the
silent install for snare it's just for
it / very silent and again our install
directory will be C and go to program
files here
I try to just you copy and paste I
finally make less typos that way
so again this is not a Microsoft
Application as long as your application
supports a silent install you can use it
here
ok so now what do we have we have an
operating system that we've imported
ok and we have the applications that we
want to install on our operating system
so what we need to do here is we need to
create a new task sequence
this is very important because if you go
to boot up your environment in into
pixie boot if you don't have your task
sequence
it won't do anything for you going to do
new task sequence
and what this task sequence will call
we'll just call it
windows 7 windows seven with office and
snare
it's called that you could add some
comments if you like
and we're going to be using standard
client task sequence
there are a couple options here but just
going to be used
using this one and this is the operating
system that we're going to select now
I'm not going to specify a product key
because i do not have access to a
site-wide product key that i can use for
this demonstration if you were to have a
site-wide product key you would put it
here
ok and then each time your host booted
up as you can see here it will need to
contact the microsoft activation service
that's how they know you're not pirating
so when we do this install we will be
prompted for an activation key if you
have a site license key you put it here
go next and we're going to see the full
name in our organization and we can even
do internet explorer home page and we're
going to do the awesome
what do you think when served to calm
that should be everybody's home page and
go next
and the administrator password
super-secret administrator password to
install applications next
ok
so now we have this task sequence that
we can use for our w TS server to
propagate out to our workstations
so now that we have this task sequence
section finished we have our windows
seven with office and snare what we need
to do is we need to come up here and we
need to update deployment share and what
this is gonna do is it's going to
generate all of the information into a
new boot process and iso image for our
deployment so we do want to optimize the
boot image
we're going to we don't want to compress
it ok so we're just going to leave those
options are going to get click next and
next
alright so now if you haven't done it
before on that could take a little
little while and a little bit of of time
on your host and what we're going to be
looking for is this light touch . PE
alright so what this is is a brand new
type of boot image that we're going to
be able to use for our deployment
purposes
so we're going to go over to our WDS
server
ok we're going to select a new boot
image and what we'll do is we'll just do
it
add image group just to organize it so
this will be windows seven right click
and you add new image
so now if you remember that light touch
what I want to do and you might I mean I
actually have sometimes the issue
locating these images we actually want
to search for light touch
p
okay let's see what we got here so now
you can see under deployment deployment
share boot
we have that women file that we're
looking for
so we're going to select here let's go
back to our w TS server and see what
we've got here
operating system deployment share boot
ok
and this is a 64-bit install so that's
what we're going to be doing there
that's that oh we don't want the install
we need a boot image i'm sorry
let me uh getting ahead of myself
cancel this boot image is here and we're
going to go to that location for our our
boot image 64 bit there
so again under the boot image it was the
deployment share boot light touch that
whim
ok there
this is going to go through this could
take a second went pretty quick
and finish so now under our windows
seven images
let's add here this is our install image
now
so add install image
let's do deployment share
let me see i'm just going to search for
our whim files here
so star . whim
ok x64 this
this is deployment share this is our
operating system
ok so this is where we're going to be
going here
so
- here operating systems windows 7 x64
custom install and i believe that was
under sources and install . whim
select next again we just need our
professional
install this now this actually could
take a little bit
checking the integrity of the source
image file so I'm just going to pause
the video and we'll come back when
that's done
ok so this successfully added to our
deployment server here and finish here
so now we have this deployment image we
have our boot image
now what we're going to do is we are
actually going to fire up our windows
seven workstation
but what you need to do in order for
some of these things to be successful
you need to give the actual computer
that you're deploying these image images
from permissions with an active
directory so we're going to move over to
our domain controller here and we just
went and we did are you know PSA . MSC
and by default all new hosts are added
to the computers organizational unit
so we're gonna have to do is delegate
control next and want to add a user but
we're not going to add a user we're
actually going to add a computer
so we're going to have to look click our
object types here
go computer select ok and we're going to
have to add that deployment server type
deployment check names and it found the
server
it's ok next we're going to do a custom
task right and we are going to allow it
to create selected objects and we wanted
to be able to create computer objects
and will do full control here on
permissions that we want to delegate
slick next and this will allow our
deployment server itself to add
computers to this organizational unit
case we're back here now let's fire up
our workstation that we have here
you can see it's going out and it's
going to require us to hit f12
so remember when we were showing you
earlier about f12 and things like that
browse through these options at your at
your leisure
i would recommend looking at them we
respond to all clients and let's see
where that is and see here require the
user to press f12
so what this is going to do is so next
time this host boots up and it already
has an operating system if the user
doesn't press f12 it's not going to
overwrite the operating system
so now under pending devices
see we have that device here ready to be
installed now i will show you this
multicast we're not going to be using it
we're just using one host but we could
create a multicast transmission and this
install image next and we have a couple
options here we could set up the
multicast when there's let's say 25
hosts that come and that will start at
any time we could set it up just to
start the multicast transmission at a
certain time of the day or when both
conditions are met
so that's an option that you have
they're just going to cancel out of
there but take a look at that you might
need it
and so what we're going to do here is
we're going to name and approve
so we will do when 7w so1 that's what
we'll name the host
you see it was approved now let's go
back to our workstation
this might take a moment
and as you can see this is now kicking
off with that light touch
PE underscore x64 file that we generated
from our work bench
now as you can see this install process
looks very different already from what
you're used to
when you are installing windows products
so we're going to go through this and as
you can see it's going to have run the
deployment wizard to install a new
operating system and usually what we do
at least for I work is there will be a
set of printed instructions when we get
a new laptop will plug it in and it will
give us the sort of names and things
like that that we have to enter in
so in this case I'm going to use this
user and the domain is when serve toots
wst
and with this is remember that package
that we created windows seven with
office and snare and the computer name
that we will create is when seven
workstation 01
we do want to join the domain so when
serve to start w st
this is the username now we could
actually even put this computer into an
organizational unit if we wanted to do
that but we'll leave this the default
we don't need to restore any user data
or settings can leave the defaults here
it's English you can change it if you
are from somewhere else and my
particular time zone is the eastern time
zone so i'll pick that and look these
are the applications that are available
to our users to install an automated
fashion so we will select microsoft
office and our snare client so select
that and the administrator password
this will be what we're going to be
using
and then this will give us the details
of what we're going to be installing now
this is going to kick off a whole
complete windows seven workstation
install and I don't necessarily think
you want to sit and watch that
so we're gonna kick this off and it's
going to gather the information and I'm
gonna bring you back when the
installation is just about finished i'll
show you when it starts are silently
installing microsoft office
so let's say you're handing out these
workstations to people with just you
know a simple install checklist
it will go through and install office
for you install your applications
everything that you need so you can
literally just walk around on lay down
in a new computer have a boot up
give your employee of very very simple
set of instructions to follow and they
will end up with a fully functional
operating system with all of the
applications that you choose to deploy
on it so I'm just gonna take a little
break now and then stop this video and
we'll come back when it's just about
done instance
just to give you a brief screengrab here
you can see here that it's currently
running the action of installing the
operating system and installing that
custom image that we specified from our
windows deployment workbench
ok so as you can see here we are on our
way back
windows is kind of finished going
through installing its first phase many
of you are familiar if you've installed
windows seven before with this point in
the install process
it's gone through rebooted come back up
and it's going through and continuing to
configure the machine
so now what we're going to see this
should look pretty familiar
if you remember we did not give it a
product key
so in a few moments here should ask for
that product key but if you do have a
site license available if you go through
back in that in the deployment toolkit
like I showed you you had the
opportunity to enter it there
so in our specific case we are well
we're not going to enter a product key
we're going to skip that face but it's
going to ask us for one you would not
see that step if you entered your site
license when working in the microsoft
deployment workbench
ok so here we are at the product key
entry point again if you were to have
entered your site license you wouldn't
be seeing this we're just going to skip
this skip this for the time being and
it's going to finalize the settings so
once we are had gone through and made
those initial inputs that we all walk
through
we have not touched the host up until
this point on
and you wouldn't have had to touch the
host at this point if you were to have
entered your site license
so now you can see this is preparing
your desktop and what I want to show you
is this is going to go through the
install of the snare syslog agent and it
is going to go through a completely
silent install of microsoft office 2010
again
uh these are options that may or may not
be relevant to you
most companies will use microsoft office
and is a way to deploy it silently as
you can see here the light touch the
installation process is now starting
that microsoft office install that we
defined in our application group
so I'm going to let this go through and
run we don't need to sit here and watch
this progress bar go through but what
I'll do is once this is finished and the
snare portion kicks off
I want you to see that that's installing
as well so this will work for Microsoft
and non microsoft products alike
ok actually I couldn't catch a
fast-enough because the snare server
installs so fast
so the script finished running and let's
see what we have now so we have our host
here
let's go to the start menu and go to all
programs and as you can see we have our
intersect alliance
this is our snare for windows our
application there and we have our
complete microsoft office installed here
now again I will include a link to
customizing your Microsoft Office
configuration file that is something
that you will have to do ours we had it
be totally silent
you can have it so that your user can
select the applications that they like
if you wish but now what we did is we
have done a light touch
installation we have installed
you know in this case office and rsyslog
agent you could install any other
application that you choose this way as
long as there are command line options
for your application install so high as
you can see here the operating system
deployment completed successfully
do we have any exciting details no not
really because we got zero errors and 0
warnings
that's what we like we're going to
select finish here and now your computer
is a hundred percent ready to roll for
any of your staff that you may have to
deploy applications and new host out to
thank you very much for watching this
episode here on one serv 2.com I know
it's a longer episode but hopefully
they'll you know a lot of system
administrators out there will be able to
use this this is something that's very
very common on in isn't always
necessarily as easy or straightforward
as it could be
so thank you for watching again if you
appreciate the videos do take time to
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you so much
I as of today we broke 200 subscribers
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watch on here on windsurf toots . com