MDT 2013, SCCM 2012 RS, enterprise deployment... where to start?

Question

Our company is just recently getting back into imaging at any level. We used to use Symantec Ghost for a while, but after there were enough problems (Windows machines having odd errors after a couple weeks, none having the same issue, failing to boot after ghosting, etc.) my supervisor put an end to it.

As of right now, we're getting in & setting up about 15-20 new computers each week in the worst way. Our PCs come from Dell & Lenovo with Windows pre-activated, and when we get them in, we just go through normal out-of-box setup, uninstall the bloatware, then install & configure our programs for a default profile. This is done to each PC individually. That's not including returned PCs where we format the drive, install from a Windows 7 USB, install the drivers (after I hunt the things down for each model), and continue on with installing our programs, etc. Needless to say, this is quite inefficient.

As for our setup, 99% of PCs we deploy use Windows 7 x64 in a mix of Dell desktops, Dell all-in-ones, and Lenovo laptops. For any other OS, we can just set those up individually. I'm trying to get this new system ready within the next couple weeks/months to use with another system we're just starting up to push out updates (among a few other things, but that's just the relevant part). We're trying to get everything standardized here, as we're expected to nearly triple in size over the next couple of years and grow more beyond that. If you're trying to figure out how we've gotten this far without someone to specialize in deployment, I don't know either.

I'm looking into other solutions, and I came across MDT, SCCM, and a few other programs & acronyms I've never seen before. I'd like to get started on using these, but there seems to be just a TON of info out there and no place to start at the level of someone just learning what MDT even stands for. I guess when I.T. gets to a specialized enough, the amount of online help easily found diminishes. I'd just like to have a place to start, maybe even an old but relevant tutorial, just something. I've seen some of BJTechNews' videos on youtube, but that's about it. Is that really all there is to it?

Answer 1

A great place to start learning about all of Microsoft’s deployment tools is the Deploy Windows 7 page of the Springboard Series on TechNet. There are many articles and videos to help you understand the technologies and tools available to deploy Windows. There is a great video on this page to help understand the various Microsoft technologies available for deployment:

Alphabet Soup Deployment: Understanding MDT, WDS, the Map Toolkit, ACT, ConfigMgr, and USMT

If you already have a Windows Server, you have access to the Windows Deployment Services (WDS) role, which will allow you to deploy images through PXE boot and multicast. If the Server is version 2008 R2 or newer, it can also install device drivers during the deployment based on Plug and Play hardware calls.

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) is a free and quite powerful tool. MDT is a task based solution which allows you to deploy Windows, Applications, Drivers and packages separately, as needed. For example, you can deploy a clean install of Windows, then choose which applications to install based on user or department needs, then run Windows Updates from your WSUS server or Windows Update during the deployment process. MDT also integrates with WDS to allow MDT to deploy using PXE and/or multicast. To get you started with MDT and WDS, I recommend these videos:

Deployment Workbench in Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 – This short video shows several of the features of MDT. This was made for MDT 2010, however the basics are the same on later versions.

These next three videos are a much longer and more detailed look into using MDT and WDS:

Deployment Day Session 1: Introduction to MDT 2012

Deployment Day Session 2: MDT 2012 Advanced

Deployment Day Session 3: Deployment using WDS

In addition to the Deploy Windows 7 page, there are many videos on the Channel 9 MSDN site.

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is a very advanced and powerful site management tool, and is a paid product. MDT can also integrate with SCCM, so I recommend that you start with MDT (or MDT with WDS) and if your company decides to use SCCM, you can continue to use MDT with SCCM for deployments.

Hope this helps,