Customizing Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

You can brand some features in MDT 2010. You can customize Deployment Workbench and the Windows Deployment Wizard. For example, you can customize Workbench.xml in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment\Bin to change the text displayed in the Deployment Workbench title bar and for each item in the console tree. Although it's generally safe to customize the <Name> tag in Workbench.xml, you should avoid changing other tags.

The LTI process is driven by .xml files called definition files. You can brand the entire LTI process by customizing the following files, which are found in the \Scripts folder in your deployment share:

• BDD_Welcome_ENU.xml Customize this file to change the text displayed on the Windows Deployment Wizard's Welcome page.
• Credentials_ENU.xml Customize this file to change the text displayed in the User Credentials dialog box.
• DeployWiz_Definition_ENU.xml Customize this file to change the text for each page displayed by the Windows Deployment Wizard.
• Summary_Definition_ENU.xml Customize this file to change the text in the Deployment Summary dialog box, which displays at the end of the LTI process.

Conclusion

The new installation architecture first introduced in Windows Vista and deployment tools included in the Windows AIK make deploying Windows 7 in your organization easier than deploying earlier versions of Windows. The new .wim file format makes it possible to deploy highly compressed image files. Windows 7 helps reduce image count by removing hardware and other dependencies from the image. Modularization in Windows 7 makes servicing images easier than with legacy methods, so you no longer have to apply, customize, and recapture an image to update it. The new answer file format, Unattend.xml, provides a more flexible and consistent configuration. Finally, deployment tools in the Windows AIK 2.0 provide a robust way to create, customize, and manage Windows 7 images.

Although the Windows AIK 2.0 provides the basic tools for customizing and deploying Windows 7, MDT 2010 provides a more flexible framework for deploying Windows 7 in businesses. MDT 2010 enables you to create and customize multiple image builds. The framework includes automation common to most businesses and is highly extensible to suit any requirements. For example, by using MDT 2010 to deploy Windows 7, you can include custom actions such as installing applications, packages, and drivers that are performed during installation.