Vista and Windows 2008 Deployment with WDS, WAIK and MDT LiteTouch
Posted by Jacques on Friday, 21 March 2008
I created this post to document the major steps I went through during my Vista deployment project. So it is intended as a reference for my own usage, but you might find it useful if you want to deploy Vista SP1 and/or Windows 2008 server in a fully automated way without third party tools, nor any MS-System Center Config Manager. It’s all in the box or freely available for download on microsoft.com.
Credits: Sincere thanks to Guillaume Ducroix, Windows Core Support Specialist, Microsoft EMEA for his professional help on MDT.
Here are the ingredients of this recipe:
- Windows Deployment Services (WDS) – included as a role in Windows 2008 – Here is the download site for 2003
- Windows Automated Installation Kit 1.1 (WAIK 1.1)
- Very nice to have: MS-SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Advanced Services Service Pack 2
- Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 (MDT 2008)
Do you have everything? OK, let’s start cooking…
- Part I: WDS
- Part II&III: WAIK ans MS-SQL
- Part IV: MDT – Building and capturing master images
- Part V: MDT – Deploying master images images
Note that this post is provided “as is” with no warranty nor supportability engagement. It does not engage my responsibility at all.
Nevertheless if you consider this not clear, incomplete or inadequate, please let me know !
March 29th, 2008 at 1:55
Excellent tutorial, thanks!
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July 24th, 2008 at 2:58
Hello collegue
I’m in Swiss french’s Lausanne 
Juste wished to send you a BIG THANKS for that blog ! All the info..
Beside everything BackOffice, I’m completely on SCCM, and now I wanted to go in MDT..
Your effort to write every step is really appreciated !. For now, I’m not able
to use correctly the Database.
When I test it, it seems to work (See BDD 2007 – Troubleshooting Database issues
http://blogs.technet.com/benhunter/archive/2007/07/10/bdd-2007-troubleshooting-database-issues.aspx)
but on the client, I’m welcomed (with correct keyboard via Bootstrap.ini, no authentication)
but after a while, I have the usual Step wizard when I have to enter everything, choose TS,
joindomain etc..
I’ve tested multiple setting (skip this, skip that.. putting YES or NO in every choice etc..)
but always the same results.
I use COmputer settings with MAC, and Location with default gateway..
Anyway, will keep trying.
Last time, big thanx for your effort and sharing.
EBE
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July 24th, 2008 at 3:16
Jeeze, I read again the url I wrotte in the comment..
and incredible, I forgot to enable named pipe (on this VIrtual Lab I rebuilt not long ago) !
Now everything’s working..
ARf..
Best Regards
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December 5th, 2008 at 10:04
Awesome post dude, I owe you a beer
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January 12th, 2009 at 3:57
I have been responsible for creating and maintaining the Master Images for my organization. I was tasked with learning about and then moving from a physical harddrive kept master for each form factor to Microsoft’s BDD 2007. This changed to MDT 2008. For most of 2008 I played around with learning this with only the internal documentation of MDT to work with. Like you, I found this documentation to be lacking and a bit disjointed. I have been able to create several deployable Master images and found that the best solution was two tiered. One was to use a WINPE boot disk to perform a LiteTouch deployment over the network. The second option was to use DVD media to perform a complete offline Litetouch deployment.
Due to not having any good documentation, I found that there were a few areas that I was not pleased with in the deployment scenario. I could not pause the capture process to get a properly configured master with updates from WSUS. I thought about putting up a website with my trials and successes. Looking for some other resources, I ran across your site. Your site has filled in some of the gaps that I had in my deployment process. Good job! Great site. Most people that I conversed with thought that I was an expert due to all of the trial and error that I had teaching myself MDT. I tip my hat to someone that has faired better and given a hand up to others in the industry.
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March 28th, 2010 at 11:14
I just found this site and am anticipated in getting started to see what mdt 2010 amd wds are all about. I noticed on the first page of Part 1 – WDS yopu mentioned Windows Vista, I’m planning on using your documentation for Windows 7, will it work with 7?
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May 13th, 2011 at 11:42
Ce site est très intéressant
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