4. Updating the Deployment Share
Updating the deployment share is where the gears of
MDT begin to turn. The process of updating the deployment share
performs three important tasks:
The tools MDT uses for deploying images to target machines are copied from the WAIK.
WinPE image files (WIMs) are created containing custom MDT settings and scripts.
The WinPE image files are added to ISO files (we'll show you those files in a moment), which you can burn to CD or DVD.
Before you update the deployment share, you need to
tweak it a bit. You'll modify the scratch space in WinPE to make it
bigger. The reason behind this is that the scratch space is used when
you inject drivers during deployment. The default size is 32 MB, and
many of the larger graphics drivers do not fit into that space. To
modify this, right-click on your deployment share and select
Properties, and then click the Windows PE x86 Settings tab. Now modify
the scratch space size to 128 MB, and repeat this on the Windows PE x64
tab (Figure 34).
To update the deployment share, take the following steps:
Right-click your deployment share name in the Deployment Workbench and choose Update Deployment Share.
The Update Deployment Share Wizard opens to the Options page, as shown in Figure 35.
The default option, "Optimize the boot image updating process," is fine
for the first time you update the deployment share. The "Compress the
boot image contents to recover space used by removed or modified
content" option can also be selected to reduce the size of your WinPE
images (smaller WinPE means faster boot time). The downside of
compressing WinPEs is that it will take longer to update the deployment
share. Accept the default option, "Optimize the boot image updating
process," and click Next on the Options page; the Summary page appears.
Review your selections and click Next.
The
Progress page is displayed, showing you every step that is being
performed. When that completes successfully, you'll see the
Confirmation page; click Finish to close the Update Deployment Share
Wizard.
Once you have updated the deployment share, you'll have two new WIM files and two new ISO files in your deployment share \boot folder (F:\MDTLab\Boot in this example, as shown in Figure 36). Notice the name of your WinPE is LiteTouchPE_x86.wim or LiteTouchPE_x64.wim. The WIM files are then added to LiteTouchPE_x86.iso and LiteTouchPE_x64.iso. The LiteTouchPE_x86.xml and LiteTouchPE_x64.xml files are the instructions for MDT to build the WinPE WIM image files.
As time marches on and you import new OSs,
applications, drivers, and packages or create new task sequences or
make changes to your deployment share properties ,
you might need to update the deployment share again. You need to update
the deployment share so that it will create new boot media only when
either of the following conditions is true:
The second and all subsequent updates can be
optimized if you choose the "Optimize the boot image updating process"
option as you did earlier. If the WinPE image files have not been
modified, the MDT update process will not waste time re-creating
something that hasn't changed (like the old MDT did). This will
significantly speed up your update process. If you want the WinPE WIM
and ISO files to be re-created (due to possible corruption or because
they simply won't boot properly), you can choose the second option,
"Completely regenerate the boot images," which takes a little longer to
update the deployment share because it is regenerating the WinPE image
files.
You're now ready to deploy your very first
image to a target machine. Be sure the target machine has networking
functionality and can connect to MDT server's deployment share.
