MDT 2010: Automated Lite Touch Deployments

Lite Touch is an easy way to deploy Windows trough an network connection. A default Lite Touch deployment still has a lot of steps to determine during setup. To lower the steps of the Lite Touch installation wizard the ‘Customsettings.ini’ file can be edited. Follow the next steps to edit the file:

  1. Go to the MDT DeploymentWorkbench
  2. Click on Deployment Shares
  3. Right click on the deploymentshare and click properties
  4. Click on the tab ‘Rules’
  5. In the editor the rules can be added

DeploymentShareCustomsettings

I have created an example ‘Customsettings.ini’ file. In this file I have created some example entries. The bold items are settings that can be customized to match your environment. The plain text are settings that are connected to a bold line. They provide information for the setting that is set before. The example file is shown below:

[Settings]

Priority=Default
Properties=MyCustomProperty

[Default]

OSInstall=Y

SkipWizard=NO

SkipBDDWelcome=YES

UserID=administrator
UserDomain=CONTOSO
UserPassword=Pa$$w0rd

SkipTaskSequence=NO
TasksequenceID={ef6c6358-8hg9-4615-90af-d4555dc2feff}

SkipComputerName=NO
OSDComputerName=!PC-Naam-invoeren

SkipDomainMembership=YES
JoinDomain=CONTOSO
DomainAdmin=Administrator
DomainAdminDomain= CONTOSO
DomainAdminPassword=Pa$$w0rd

SkipComputerBackup=YES

SkipUserData=YES

SkipProductKey=YES

SkipPackageDisplay=YES

SkipLocaleSelection=YES
KeyboardLocale=en-GB
UserLocale=en-GB
UILanguage=en-GB
SkipTimeZone=YES
TimeZoneName=W. Europe Standard Time
TimeZone=110

SkipApplications=YES
Applications001={ef6c6358-8hg9-4615-90af-d4555dc2feff}

SkipAdminPassword=YES
AdminPassword=Pa$$w0rd

SkipCapture=YES
ComputerBackupLocation=\\ServerName\Backupfolder$\
BackupFile=Image.wim

SkipBitLocker=YES

SkipSummary=YES

SkipFinalSummary=YES

Retrieve WMI computer model name

At deployment phase MDT uses WMI to query the proper computer model and only the current model drivers will be injected. In order to get this working properly, you have to use the exact model name in your Out-of-Box Driver treeTo build up an MDT deployment based on the the model name of your hardware you need to now the name of the hardware. To retrieve the proper computer name execute at command prompt:

  • wmic csproduct get name

Use this command to get the exact WMI name to determine the computer model. In my case the computer name is “HP EliteBook 8460p”.

WMI computer name command

Now that we have the computer name in MDT, the correct folder can be created and the drivers can be imported.