Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings
There is never enough automation
When I first started in IT, I worked with a team of people to do very repetitive tasks as a DBA....
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 02/15/2016
Build Windows 7 images faster by patching them faster
I’m sure you’ve noticed that when building a new Windows 7 SP1 image that there are a lot of updates...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 02/12/2016
What’s Changed in MDT 2013 Update 2
Looking at a comparison of the files in MDT 2013 Update 2, here’s a quick overview of the...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 01/11/2016
Using the Windows Store for Business with MDT 2013
The Windows Store for Business was made available to everyone back in November, corresponding to the...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 01/11/2016
Updated Remove Apps Script, and a Workaround
I’ve updated the script attached to...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 12/31/2015
Seeing extra apps? Turn them off.
A few weeks ago, I published a script to help remove the in-box apps from a Windows 10 image. Some...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 11/23/2015
Removing Windows 10 in-box apps during a task sequence
A couple of years ago, Ben Hunter posted a script on the Deployment Guys blog that showed how to...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 11/11/2015
Windows 10: Reducing the disk footprint
An Overview A while back, a blog post at...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/16/2015
Adding .NET Framework to Windows 10 using MDT 2013 Update 1
If you didn’t read through my last post at...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/02/2015
Adding features (including .NET 3.5) to Windows 10
Windows 10 has created a new way of installing features that aren’t included in the operating...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/31/2015
Windows 10, MDT 2013 Update 1, and HideShell
Four blogs in a week. In case you haven’t noticed yet, my team has started blogging to...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/23/2015
Windows 10 Pre-Upgrade Validation using SETUP.EXE
For those looking planning to do in-place upgrades to migrate from Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/23/2015
MDT 2013 Update 1 Preview: What’s Changed
In case you missed it at...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 03/03/2015
Enterprise Mode Internet Explorer
With the release of Windows 8.1 Update, enterprises have a new tool at their disposal for addressing...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 05/16/2014
Useful deployment links
As we were going through our TechEd North America deployment pre-conference today, we showed a lot...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 05/11/2014
Experimenting with WIMBoot using MDT 2013
With the release of the Windows 8.1 Update, there is a new mechanism available for running Windows...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 04/12/2014
Another Windows 8.1 Update tip
With the Windows 8.1 Update’s release to MSDN yesterday, people are discovering the various...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 04/03/2014
Ten years and counting
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been working for Microsoft for that long already – time flies. During...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 01/19/2014
Configuring file associations in Windows 8.1
When you are using Windows 8.1 (or Windows 8, which behaves the same way), you may notice that some...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 01/09/2014
Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 8.1 using MDT 2013
Most people using MDT at this point have made the migration to Windows 7 and are looking at MDT 2013...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 01/09/2014
Download some free books…
Many of you will be traveling or taking vacations over the holiday season and might be looking for...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 12/20/2013
Have you submitted your MDT feedback?
Several people have asked me recently about desired features in MDT, which is great – but it would...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 12/10/2013
The ADK for Windows 8.1 has been updated
With the general availability of Windows 8.1, a new update to the Assessment and Deployment Kit for...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 10/21/2013
MDT 2013: What’s changed?
I did a session at TechEd New Zealand a few weeks ago talking about what’s changed in MDT...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 10/18/2013
Ensuring custom GPO packs are copied to linked deployment shares
It’s been a surprisingly common question in the past few weeks – how come MDT doesn’t copy custom...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 10/10/2013
Grabbing out-of-box drivers from a Windows 8 system
It seems like a common request: I’ve got a brand new system, right out of the box from the...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/16/2013
Sometimes it’s the little things…
I’ve been building SMS and ConfigMgr environments for over 17 years now. You would think that...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 05/29/2013
User groups in the Seattle area
You would expect that having Microsoft in the Seattle area would result in having a plethora of...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 11/05/2012
Using boot from VHD and differencing disks
MDT 2012 includes a task sequence for deploying an operating system into a VHD, setting up the...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 10/31/2012
More experimenting with RAMdisks: Using a VM completely in RAM
In my previous post, I talked about using a small RAMdisk to speed up the process of generating MDT...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 10/18/2012
Experimenting with a RAMdisk
One of the slow operations in the MDT Deployment Workbench is the initial “Update deployment share”...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 10/12/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1: Deploy to VHD
I was working on a separate blog posting (to be posted soon) that referenced the “Deploy to VHD”...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 10/01/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1: Roles and Features improvements
Apparently I was so wrapped up in the MDT 2012 Update 1 development process that I forgot to talk...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/26/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1 has been updated
For those of you using ConfigMgr 2012, you may be interested in this. When ConfigMgr 2012...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/19/2012
Using the Windows Performance Toolkit
Inside the new Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) that was released back in August is a...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/13/2012
Troubleshooting Windows Deployments, take #2
Traveling from New Zealand to Australia for the TechEd Australia conference, I had some additional...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/11/2012
Database changes in MDT 2012 and MDT 2012 Update 1
A few people have asked about the changes made in MDT 2012 and MDT 2012 Update 1 in regards to the...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/09/2012
Troubleshooting Windows Deployments
I’ve been doing a session at various events over the years called “Troubleshooting...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/05/2012
Revisiting LTI deployment wizard application selection profiles
A few years back, I posted a blog at...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/03/2012
Automatically configuring the ConfigMgr console for MDT 2012
As part of the MDT installation process, you need to run the “Configure ConfgMgr...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/03/2012
Speed up MDT task sequences in Configuration Manager
Here’s a quick suggestion for speeding up MDT-created task sequences in ConfigMgr 2007 or ConfigMgr...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 09/01/2012
Copying $OEM$ files and folders with MDT 2012 Update 1
I mentioned in the blog post at...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/24/2012
Displaying the task sequence name
I was talking to some people yesterday at the TechMentor conference in Redmond and about MDT, and...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/22/2012
One journey ends, another begins
A long time ago, I worked in corporate IT. One day I started looking for new challenges and...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/01/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1 is coming soon!
You probably noticed that Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 RTM’d today (see...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/01/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1: UDI “Build Your Own Pages”
One of the challenges with previous versions of the UDI wizard was extensibility. With MDT...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 08/01/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1: Customer experience improvement program
If you have installed MDT 2012 Update 1 Beta 1, you might have noticed a new wizard page in the MSI...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 07/31/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1: Orchestrator support
Another new feature in MDT 2012 Update 1 is the ability to call System Center 2012 Orchestrator...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 07/31/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1: Monitoring for ConfigMgr
In MDT 2012, we added support for DaRT integration into an MDT Lite Touch boot image, as well as a...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 07/31/2012
MDT 2012 Update 1: Merged ZTI and UDI task sequences
Since we released MDT 2012 Update 1 Beta 1 a few weeks ago, I’ve received a few panicked e-mail...
Author: Michael Niehaus Date: 07/27/2012