Scriptimus Ex Machina

One importing thing when deploying images is ensuring there is some sort of indication that Lite-Touch has ended and the machine is ready for use. For security, you may wish to shut the machine down at the end or log the machine off. This behaviour is optional by using the FinishAction property in the customsettings.ini.

Use this to log the current user off at the end of a deployment:

FinishAction=LOGOFF

Use this setting to turn the computer off at the end of a deployment:

FinishAction=SHUTDOWN

To reboot the computer at the end of a deployment use either

FinishAction=REBOOT

or

FinishAction=RESTART

These settomgs can be used in the customsettings.ini or as a Task Sequence Variable.

Many people encounter an issue applying their WIM images to the correct partition. I’ve seen this many times in the forums when people say that their images are not deploying to various disks or partitions etc as they want/expect. Although I have never experienced this phenomenon myself the property definitions listed below should help. You can use the property definitions to target the correct disk, volume and partition.

Use this example in your task sequences or customsettings.ini to correctly target your image destinations:

DestinationDisk=0
DestinationLogicalDrive=0
DestinationPartition=1

You can use the Diskpart tool to locate the correct disk/volume id’s. For example, run Diskpart from an elevated command prompt and type:

List disk
List Volume

You can find the Diskpart technical reference on Technet here.

When performing your deployments the summary pages will cost you an extra click each. This is somthing you can’t afford in a fully automated deployment.

To hide the summary panes during the Lite-Touch Deployment wizard use the SkipSummary variable. For the final box that appears when a deployment ends use SkipFinalSummary. enter the following in the customsettings.ini or add them as Task Sequence Variables:

SkipSummary=YES
SkipFinalSummary=YES

This willl not stop the red boxes that appear in the case of a failure.

The installation of applications can be automated as part of a Lite-Touch deployment. There are times when you want to install an application after the operating system has been deployed. For example you may want to install an antivirus client or an SCCM client agent.

Firstly your applications will need to be added to the deployment workbench and configured to run silently. Once that’s done you can target the applications by obtaining their GUID’s from the Applications node.

The example below is taken from my customsettings.ini and will cause MDT to install 3 applications evertime a deployment is run:

SkipApplications=YES
SkipAppsOnUpgrade=YES

Applications001={1a7b58f6-5de8-4fb0-bcc9-88653ff810f4}
Applications002={e34ff5f1-2a52-43d2-89ff-2d13aef76233}
Applications003={c1ac9665-b9da-4db3-9e14-b729a9e09859}

You should list all your applications in the order that you want them installed (for example, Applications001, Applications002, Applications002 etc). followed by their GUID in curly brackets.

If you have many applications to automate, you can save time and obtain the GUIDs from the Applications.xml file in the Control folder of your deployment share.

You may not want your applications to install for every single task sequence in which case you can add the variables as Task Sequences Variables. More on that another day.