Are you planning a Windows 10 rollout in the next few weeks? Are you looking for an easy-to-manage, fully automated solution that also supports different hardware types? Are you using ZENWorks Configuration Management and are you struggling with Microsoft Deployment Tools (MDT)? If you answered "Yes" to at least 2 questions, you should read more.
Based on the experience we gained from numerous successful desktop management projects with ZENWorks Configuration Management (ZCM), Micro Focus Consulting now provides a best practice document that describes all the steps required to build a fully automated installation process for Windows 10 without using MDT.
The following topics are covered:
General Overview
Automated Deployment of Windows 10
Typical problems and solutions
Using NCSTools (a small set of tools to extend Windows 10 deployment process)
Setting up required imaging and software bundles in ZCM
In addition to the best practice documentation, we provide all necessary configuration files, scripts and our NCSTools. NCSTools?
Do you know them already? With our NCSTools you can extend the entire windows setup without touching the windows automation files again and again.
Here are some examples:
Installation of additional drivers using DPInst:
Put the following config file into a specific folder using an addon-image and additional driver and tools are installed:
DRIVER.CFG
------snip------
[Control] CustomerName="Micro Focus" ProgressTitle="Deployment Solution for $CustomerName$" ProgressMainText=Installing Plug and Play Drivers ProgressSubText=Please wait ... ProgressHide=0 CommandWindow=MAX [Commands] Key=C:\INSTALL\DRV\INF\DPINST.EXE /S /SH /SA /SW /EL /SE /PATH "C:\INSTALL\DRV\INF"
------snip------
Installation of Language Packs
Language Packs can be installed by creating an addon-image with the language pack files and the following configuration file:
LANGUAGEPACKS.CFG
------snip------
[Control] CustomerName="Micro Focus" ProgressTitle="Deployment Solution for $CustomerName$" ProgressMainText="Installing Language Packs" ProgressSubText="$v_NCSFile$" ProgressDelay="1" ProgressPos_X="75" ProgressPos_Y="150" ProgressHide="0"
[INFOS.MF] Variable %GLOBAL_LANGUAGE_ID% will be exported during imaging phase In addition make sure that an AddOnImage which contains the language pack is transferred to the client
To add or remove commands you do not need to touch Windows 10 "unattend.xml" anymore. Just use our NCSTools and ZCM addon-images to customize your Windows 10 setup.
The documentation provides a step-by-step to prepare the Windows 10 base-image and all required addon-images containing all files to get a fully-automated Windows 10 deployment. After installing the ZCM Agent on your new devices, ZCM will do the job to install all required software using bundles.
Please download and read the documentation to get the detailed description and all tools and configuration files.
Thanks for this document, it has saved me many headaches. A question though, several times in the document the author recommends taking a Snapshot of the current settings. What is meant by snapshot? Does he mean take an image? or create a windows 10 restore point? Please advise on how I can make a snapshot. Thanks Jason
Thanks for this document, it has saved me many headaches. A question though, several times in the document the author recommends taking a Snapshot of the current settings. What is meant by snapshot? Does he mean take an image? or create a windows 10 restore point? Please advise on how I can make a snapshot. Thanks Jason
"snaphot" is used in a virtual machine environment to save the actual status of a virtual machine. You can go back to a "snapshot" after making changes i.e. testing specific settings.