MDT – Task Sequences
If you’re still here I’d like to thank you for sticking it out. We are nearly at the end of our guide however before we get to that lets get stuck into Task Sequences.
Right click on “Task Sequences” and choose “New Task Sequence”. Today we will be building a Windows 8.1 sequence. Once again it doesnt really matter what Task Sequence ID naming scheme you use but consistency is key. My personal preference is OS_Build so in this example WIN8.1_001 is chosen. Task Sequence name should be as meaningful as possible and then any comments can be entered in the last field. In a multi IT person environment the author of the build is usually put in here along with a date.
We want a standard Client Task Sequence and the OS we will be using is Windows 8.1 (click on the images to expand).
For windows 7 and higher you do not need to specify a key. This is useful if you have a KMS environment or if you want/need to do it at either pre or post install. Alternatively if you use a volume license MAK you can enter it here. The last field used to be used for Win XP keys (as their method of key activation was different to Vista/7) however I dont think XP is supported in this build of MDT. A retail key would work here according to the info but I haven’t really tested in that area to be honest.
Full name, Organisation and your IE home page can be specified here. Do note that group policy will override this if you have that in place but this is a good way to hard code it for non domain machines/logins
Add your local administrator password that you want to apply to your builds here which is a great way of ensuring that every PC built with MDT has the same administrator password (no more being locked out of a PC due to someone’s typo or accidental Caps Lock).
And then click on Next to get a summary before getting the finish screen.
So to summarise we have now completed the following
- Installation of MDT 2013 Update 1 and Windows 10 ADK
- Configured a Deployment Share
- Imported Operating Systems, Drivers and Applications
- Created a Task Sequence to deploy Windows 8.1
This next part we are going to configure the Task Sequence to automate a few more things. As you can see here Ive created a Windows 7 and a Windows 8.1 sequence. Right click on the task sequence you wish to edit and choose “Properties”.
This tab allows you an overview of the sequence. The main note for this tab is whether you wish this sequence to be enabled or not. If you disable the sequence it will not be available for selection during deployment.
The Task Sequence tab is pretty full on and can be left as it is. However for this guide we will be inserting a task to install a mandatory application. To do this select the “install applications” task and then click on the “Add” button and choose “New Group”. This will put a folder above the “Install Applications” task.
In that folder we are going to “Add” the “Install Application” task. In this example we will be installing the “Classic Shell” application so name it appropriately, and in the selection box choose “Install a single applicaton”. You can then click on the browse button to select from your applications that you have already imported and so for us we will be choosing Classic Shell x64. This is a great way to ensure that applications are mandatory across the board (ie Office, Anti-Virus or other SOE applications).
Once that is done lets move to the OS Info page. Here we are interested in the “Edit Unattend.xml” option. Click on that and if its the first time you have run it be a little patient for it to run (takes around 5-10mins). What happens is Windows System Image Manager opens up the .wim file and proceeds to map out all the options for your unattend file. If its not the first time the process is much much quicker (a few seconds).
NOTE!!!!! You cannot create/edit an x86 operating system unattend file on an x64. So if you are running an x64 O/S you are limited to only creating x64 unattend files. There is however a work around which ill address at a later date.
Once it opens you will get the following screen. Here we are going to go through and change a few of the settings in order to automate our install. The main thing we are interested in here is the Language and Locale settings. We want to populate our NZ settings so in order to do that we need to go through and change InputeLocale from 0409:00000409 to 1409:00000409. The SystemLocal, UILanguage and UserLocale needs to be changed from en-US to en-NZ.
As you can see here this is what we want to have. There are 3 areas where this appears so you need to go through and change them accordingly. For now its best not to change anything else in here but some of the options might make sense to you as you navigate around. Note that the WindowsPE part is not the same as the oobe part so forgetting to change it in one area might not have the desired effect. If you forget to change the language and locale settings in oobe what will happen is that upon being built the OS will still be stuck in US mode, even though you selected the NZ settings for the WinPE and Generalise sections.
So once you have gone through and changed the locale settings we are pretty much done for this part. File -> save or Ctrl+S and you can close this window.
Before we head off we need to head back to the applications folder and hide the mandatory application we just set up. If a user elects to install it whilst it is also in the task sequencer as a mandatory install it will end up installing twice (which is inefficient at best or causing errors at worse).
That brings us to the end of our Task Sequences post. Head over to part 6 for the final part of our guide which deals with deployment. Time to see if all this hard work pays off.