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Prepare for Deployment with MDT 2013

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Applies To: Windows 8.1

This topic will walk you through the steps necessary to create the server structure required to deploy the Windows 8.1, or Windows 8, operating system using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2013. It covers the installation of the necessary system prerequisites, the creation of shared folders and service accounts, and the configuration of security permissions in the files system and in Active Directory.

For the purposes of this topic, we will use two machines: DC01 and MDT01. DC01 is a domain controller and MDT01 is a Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard server. MDT01 is a member of the domain contoso.com for the fictitious Contoso Corporation. For more details on the setup for this topic, please see Proof-Of-Concept Environment.

In this topic

  • System requirements

  • Install Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) for Windows 8.1

  • Install MDT 2013

  • Create the OU structure

  • Create the MDT service account

  • Create and share the logs folder

  • Use CMTrace to read log files (optional)

See also

System requirements

MDT 2013 requires the following components:

  • Any of the following operating systems:

    • Windows 7

    • Windows 8

    • Windows 8.1

    • Windows Server 2008 R2

    • Windows Server 2012

    • Windows Server 2012 R2

  • Windows ADK for Windows 8.1

  • Windows PowerShell

  • Microsoft .NET Framework

Install Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) for Windows 8.1

These steps assume that you have the MDT01 member server installed and configured and that you have downloaded Windows ADK for Windows 8.1 to the E:\Downloads\ADK folder.

  1. On MDT01, log on as Administrator in the CONTOSO domain using a password of P@ssw0rd.

  2. Start the ADK Setup (E:\Downloads\ADK\adksetup.exe), and on the first wizard page, click Continue.

  3. On the Select the features you want to change page, select the features below and complete the wizard using the default settings:

    1. Deployment Tools

    2. Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE)

    3. User State Migration Tool (UMST)

Install MDT 2013

These steps assume that you have downloaded MDT 2013 to the E:\Downloads\MDT 2013 folder on MDT01.

  1. On MDT01, log on as Administrator in the CONTOSO domain using a password of P@ssw0rd.

  2. Install MDT (E:\Downloads\MDT 2013\MicrosoftDeploymentToolkit2013_x64.msi) with the default settings.

Create the OU structure

If you don’t have an organizational unit (OU) structure in your Active Directory, you should create one. In this section, you create an OU structure and a service account for MDT 2013.

  1. On DC01, using Active Directory User and Computers, in the contoso.com domain level, create a top-level OU named Contoso.

  2. In the Contoso OU, create the following OUs:

    1. Accounts

    2. Computers

    3. Groups

  3. In the Contoso / Accounts OU, create the following underlying OUs:

    1. Admins

    2. Service Accounts

    3. Users

  4. In the Contoso / Computers OU, create the following underlying OUs:

    1. Servers

    2. Workstations

  5. In the Contoso / Groups OU, create the following OU:

    1. Security Groups

Figure 7. A sample of how the OU structure will look after all the OUs are created.

Create the MDT service account

When creating a reference image, you need an account for MDT. The MDT Build Account is used for Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) to connect to MDT01.

  1. On DC01, using Active Directory User and Computers, browse to contoso.com / Contoso / Service Accounts.

  2. Select the Service Accounts OU and create the MDT_BA account using the following settings:

    1. Name: MDT_BA

    2. User logon name: MDT_BA

    3. Password: P@ssw0rd

    4. User must change password at next logon: Clear

    5. User cannot change password: Selected

    6. Password never expires: Selected

Create and share the logs folder

By default MDT stores the log files locally on the client. In order to capture a reference image, you will need to enable server-side logging and, to do that, you will need to have a folder in which to store the logs. For more information, see Create a Windows 8.1 Reference Image.

  1. On MDT01, log on as CONTOSO\Administrator.

  2. Create and share the E:\Logs folder by running the following commands in an elevated Windows PowerShell prompt:

    New-Item -Path E:\Logs -ItemType directory
New-SmbShare –Name Logs$ –Path E:\Logs -ChangeAccess EVERYONE
icacls E:\Logs /grant '"MDT_BA":(OI)(CI)(M)'

Figure 8. The Sharing tab of the E:\Logs folder after sharing it with PowerShell.

Use CMTrace to read log files (optional)

The log files in MDT Lite Touch are formatted to be read by Configuration Manager Trace (CMTrace), which is available as part of Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager Toolkit. You can use Notepad, but CMTrace formatting makes the logs easier to read.

Figure 9. An MDT log file opened in Notepad.

Figure 10. The same log file, opened in CMTrace, is much easier to read.