Hello All, Sorry for such a long winded post! I'm a bit of a newbie to Vista/2008/Windows 7/2008 R2 deployment methodologies, although I've a large deal of experience with NT4/Win2k/WinXP/Win2k3 automation. I am currently working on an SCCM OSD build for our new Windows 2008 R2 server, and I'm a bit lost with how some of the concepts and how they fit together. Maybe I just haven't read the right whitepaper, but if there is one, if someone can point me in it's direction it would be great. I've done a fair bit of reading on WSIM and how you create an unattend.xml file for the installation, and the concept is still a little confusing for me (coming from unattend.txt and sysprep.inf). I think I get the general idea of how each of the "Passes" of install (winPe, offlineServicing, generalize, specialise, auditSystem, auditUser, oobeSystem) work, but I don't understand why some component (e.g. Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup) can be added to mutiple passes - why do we need the flexibility - I just want the build to play down with all my settings. Why have a "auditUser" pass if I can edit user settings in a "generalize" pass? However the most confusing bit (at least to me) is how these passes marry to the SCCM OSD build process. Note I am not using MDT (as it's deemed too over complicated for a server build as it includes USMT and other pieces I'll never use). When you tell OSD to create a task sequence to build a reference image, it contains it's own tasks to perform some of the work involved in the various passes of the build process. So my question - how do the seven passes "marry" to the OSD build process? For example, I read the best way to apply security updates to my image is using DISM.exe in the "offlineServicing" section of the answer file - how do this accurataly match the "Apply Updates" task of OSD? If I am using OSD, should I even be bothering using an unattend.xml at all? Thanks in advance Paul

You are absolutely correct that it can be very confusing. The key point to be made is that anywhere in the task sequence, specifically the Apply Windows and Apply Network Settings tasks merely update the unattend.xml file that you supply to the apply windows os task and if you don't supply an unattend.xml, then a default generic one will be created for you. Thus, I generally recommend not to supply the values set via the TS in the unnattend.xml because things reduces the "dynamic" quality of the TS as a whole. As for the auditUser pass, this is not a typical pass and is only run when you run sysprep in audit mode; this is not done during OSD. auditUser is a manual pass and thus goes against the automation spirit of OSD. You ultimately do not need to actually supply your own unattend.xml; as I said above, a default, generic one will be created/supplied for you by the task sequence if you do not specify one. The choice of whether you want to customize anything via the unnattend.xml is yours. I find that in general, I do not use one or only customize a very small number of items with an unattend.xml at most customers.Jason | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jsandys | http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/jsandys/default.aspx | Twitter @JasonSandys

As Jason answered already your question just a short sidenote on MDT. There are several MDT Task Sequence templates also one for Server deployments. And for this there is no USMT or other pieces that are only used in Client deployments necessary. But it adds a bunch of usefull functionality for the configuration of Domain Controllers, DHCP, DNS or more interesting the Roles and Features that shall be installed. I recommend at least having a quick look on it as the integration just takes a few minutes and everything can be removed without any junk left. Regards Maik

I think one of the important things to note, which goes back to one of your questions, is that the OS itself goes through all of these different phases when it installs. The reason that your answer file has all of the options in it is so that you can supply the answers that the OS needs when the OS needs it...if you want to provide them. Understand that there are many different types of businesses and they might all want to do things differently. Some might want to specify all the answers 100% w/o any user interaction, others might want certain prompts to still show up. Having a very granular answer file allows for this to be possible. Other settings can only go in one specific phase and so those are fairly straight forward to understand. However, as has already been said, if you are building the OS using a ConfigMgr TS, then it will automatically provide a default file for you that will answer the questions. You can specify one of your own as well, but it is not required. Mike N.

Jason, I am attempting to modify the unattend.xml on a SCCM2007 SP2 MDT2010/int TS to setup a Corp Baseline build and capture reference computer. I guess i am confused as when or if we can modify the unattend.xml and if what is the limitations. I wanted to Create a Corp Baseline Windows 7 Referencing TS with IE customizations and SNMP Agent Enabled as this would be a standard for any Window 7 installations on any type of deployment. On my SCCM MDT TS for capturing a reference computer, I went in and modified the default SCCM MDT unattend.xml and carefully inserted the SNMP and IE customizations with WSIM making sure i did not modify any settings already present. I Added DoCapture=YES in the customsettings.ini However, i have not been able to get any of my TS's to capture the Image. logs seem to indicate that the TS step is skipped because it evaluated false Can this be done? or is this the incorrect way to handle OS customizations to deploy thin images or am i some how interfering with the sysprep insertion.

If the capture of the Image is skipped, then something is going on which is causing it to skip that step (obviously)... To your other question though, that's not how I'd make OS changes to a custom image. What I'd suggest is to add the steps that you want to make as an "Install Software" step in the Task Sequece. The main reason I'd do it that way would be that it becomes more "visible" in the TS that this is what is going on. It might be splitting hairs, but that's just the way I'd choose to do it. Mike N.

Mike, Thanks for the insight. I ran a SCCM TS for Reference Capture and all seems to have worked fine. Now i am back to figuring out how to modify the OS settings with a Install Software. I really agree with the "visiblity" I (and others) would like to see what is going on with TS and every change that we make to a default OS... Do you happen to know a white paper that could explain this method in more detail. I have been looking for sometime but have yet to find any clues.

Hi, If you go into MDT help and search for flow, a flow chart of the different phases can be found. This includes which scripts are used and which log files are updated during the process. Rgds Thomas