Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Creating and Configuring a Deployment Share

Before you can use MDT 2010 to deploy Windows 7, you must create a deployment share. A deployment share is a repository for the operating system images, language packs, applications, device drivers, and other software that will be deployed to your target computers. Deployment shares are new in MDT 2010 and consolidate two separate features found in MDT 2008:

• Distribution share Contains operating system source files, application source files, packages, and out-of-box drivers.
• Deployment point Contains files needed to connect to the distribution share and install a build from it.

By consolidating these two separate features into a single feature (the deployment share), MDT 2010 simplifies the deployment process. In addition, a deployment share does not have to be located on a specific computer-it can be stored on a local disk volume, a shared folder on the network, or anywhere in a stand-alone Distributed File System (DFS) namespace. (Windows PE cannot access domain-based DFS namespaces.)

Note See the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Documentation Library for information on how to upgrade to MDT 2010 from previous versions of MDT or Business Desktop Deployment (BDD). After you upgrade to MDT 2010, you must also upgrade any deployment points created using the previous version of MDT or BDD.

To create a new deployment share, perform the following steps:

1. In the Deployment Workbench console tree, right-click Deployment Shares and then click New Deployment Share.
2. On the Path page, specify the path to the folder for your deployment share. The default path is <drive>\DeploymentShare, where <drive> is the volume with the most available space. For best performance, you should specify a path to a separate physical disk that has sufficient free space to hold the operating system source files, application source files, packages, and out-of-box drivers you use for your deployments.
3. On the Share page, specify the share name for the deployment share. By default, this will be a hidden share named DeploymentShare$.
4. On the Descriptive Name page, specify a descriptive name for the deployment share. By default, this will be MDT Deployment Share.
5. On the Allow Image Capture page, leave the Ask If An Image Should Be Captured option selected so you will be able to capture an image of your reference computer.
6. On the Allow Admin Password page, choose whether the user will be prompted to set the local Administrator password during installation.
7. On the Allow Product Key page, choose whether the user will be prompted to enter a product key during installation.
8. Finish the remaining steps of the wizard.

Once your deployment share has been created, you can view the hierarchy of folders under it in the Deployment Workbench.

Note The default view in Deployment Workbench includes the action pane. The action pane often gets in the way of viewing the entire details pane. You can remove the action pane by authoring the management console. To author the console, run C:\Program Files \Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Bin\DeploymentWorkbench.msc /a. Click View, click Customize, clear the Action Pane check box, and then click OK. Save your changes by clicking File and then clicking Save on the main menu. When prompted whether you want to display a single window interface, click Yes.

After creating a deployment share, you can configure it in the following ways (at minimum, you must add the Windows 7 source files to deploy Windows 7):

• Add, remove, and configure operating systems.
• Add, remove, and configure applications.
• Add, remove, and configure operating system packages, including updates and language packs.
• Add, remove, and configure out-of-box device drivers.

When you add operating systems, applications, operating system packages, and out-of-box device drivers to a deployment share, Deployment Workbench stores the source files in the deployment share folder specified when you create the deployment share. You will associate these source files and other files with task sequences later in the development process.

In the distribution share's Control folder, Deployment Workbench stores metadata about operating systems, applications, operating system packages, and out-of-box device drivers in the following files:

• Applications.xml Contains metadata about applications in the distribution share
• Drivers.xml Contains metadata about device drivers in the distribution share
• OperatingSystems.xml Contains metadata about operating systems in the distribution share
• Packages.xml Contains metadata about operating system packages in the distribution share