Deploying from DVD

Rather than working with deployment shares, you can put all the needed software used to deploy the machine on MDT local deployment media. This media can be a DVD, USB hard disk, or any other portable device. You build the media from the Deployment Workbench and determine what to include when you choose a selection profile. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Deployment Workbench and browse to Deployment Shares → <your deployment share name> → Advanced Configuration And Media.
2. From the Actions pane, select New Media to start the New Media wizard.
3. On the General page, provide the path where the media should be created (make sure this path, including the folder, exists), and choose a selection profile to specify what should be included in the local deployment media. Click Next to continue.
4. Click Next on the Summary page. The New Media wizard will now start and display its progress on the Progress page.

You can save the status presented on the screen to a log file by selecting Save Output and providing a name to save the output to. You can also view the PowerShell script used to create the local deployment media by selecting View Script. You can later use this script as a basis to create local deployment media automatically. Click Finish to close the Create New Media wizard. After the New Media wizard has run, you will find its output in the folder that you specified in the Create New Media wizard. After you update the media, the folder contains an ISO file. You can use this file to burn a DVD, or you can mount it to virtual machines in your virtual environment. Whether ISO files are created or not is an option that you specify in the media's properties. When you don't plan to use the ISO, disabling its creation will save a lot of time when the Update Media Content wizard runs.

The folder will also include a directory structure containing the content specified in the selection profile. You can use this directory structure to create a bootable USB drive, for example. Before you do, you should prepare your USB drive as follows:

1. Insert the USB drive into your computer.
2. Start a command prompt and type diskpart.exe.
3. In diskpart, type list disk and determine the disk number associated with your USB drive.
4. Type the following in diskpart:

   Select Disk x (where x is the number you determined in step 3)
   clean
   create partition primary
   active
   format fs=NTFS quick
   assign
   exit
   

You can now copy the contents of the Content subfolder to the bootable USB drive, which you can use to boot into the Deployment Wizard.