MDT Sucks

anything I don't mind · 17 Sep 2013 at 17:37

Unfortunately i have to create another build for deployment and thought i would try WDS and came across MDT as i used sccm at another site and thought (after hitting my head against the wall for a few days) that eventually it worked ok.

But now i've tried MDT and WDS and sccm looks brilliant in comparison. I don't think i've ever come across more poorly designed software in my entire life. Maybe the WAIK is probably more poorly designed and the MDT was meant to alleviate that problem, figures.

I am thinking of just doing it manually with WDS because the MDT component is worthless.

Anyone use WDS and not MDT due to MDT being atrocious?

mrbios · 17 Sep 2013 at 18:02

I used WDS for a few years before moving to SCCM last year, never tried MDT but i know quite a few people who swear by it as a simpler route of doing a lot of things without going all out with SCCM.

Overall I've never really heard much bad about it. WDS has to be the easiest and quickest deployment solution to setup I've ever used though, can have it setup and ready to capture and deploy in 15 minutes easy, fantastic tool at what it does but it just need more features.....which is what MDT is there for.

anything I don't mind · 17 Sep 2013 at 18:10

MDT is meant to make it easier but its like a stripped down and free version of SCCM so you can imagine how poorly designed it is.

You can't even do a basic capture of a reference image without wasting 6 hours searching google for error codes like 0x80004005.

Ill probably just end up using wds by itself at this point.

[Darkend]Viper · 17 Sep 2013 at 21:41

I use MDT, I find it just seems to work well when it's setup correctly, but when there's an error it's a pig to find.

I spent about a week setting up and fine tuning my install, and have since upgraded it twice on fresh installs and had it running within a few hours, this was with using my old wims.

I have used wds, and find that the 2012 version is better, seems to be even more fool proof. I've yet to play with sccm in the production environment, but have set up a test lab and installed there and it seemed to work well but didn't get chance to play with it fully.

MDT is a cut down sccm so some things are the same between them. My biggest one was when using an sql db to give the computer names out automatically.

anything I don't mind · 18 Sep 2013 at 11:44

Well I have a desktop with an Intel 82579LM network card and the standard drivers even after being injected 100% correctly and boot image updated, refuse too work. I am not alone either the forums are full with people with same issue with this network card and its not like a rare network card either its about one of the most common network cards on the market, its intel generic onboard.

I got 32bit winpe working by injecting a whole list of OS drivers but 64bit still not working. Ive read that people suggest doing it in vmware but i can't see how that will help my issue as i still need a 64bit boot image too boot on these pcs or i won't be able to deploy an image to it, well as far as i understand.

Its just atrocious that MS cant just use generic drivers, stick clonezilla in and it works out of the box. Why can linux get network cards working but microsoft just throws out worthless errors, its because they don't real world test their products and they don't think about using it.

Another poor example is windows creates a 100mbyte partition during installation, when try capture an image it tries to copy files to the first partition and they don't fit so it errors and there is no way around that, you have to remove this partition or MDT won't be able to capture the image, its simply pathetic.

Microsoft effort level 0

You might think well its free. Wrong i had the same problems with sccm and that costs £1000s

[Darkend]Viper · 18 Sep 2013 at 14:03

Well i've got it working with intels onboard nics fine, just add the drivers, update deployment share and it creates both 32bit and 64bit boot images which it locates in the deploymentshare\boot folder. I've got close to 25 different types of machines that are imaged through it, from netbooks to laptops to sff to full desktops and had no problems with drivers for NIC;s. Had a problem with a driver for the vpro on some machines.

When I add drivers I add the win 7 x86 and x64 drivers and update deployment share. Job done.

I've also never had any issues capturing images through it, and i've created about 100 different ones.

anything I don't mind · 18 Sep 2013 at 16:06

Ive added the drivers just fine but the 64bit boot image nic drivers don't work. Ive read that with most recent version you can use 32bit boot image to deploy 64bit image so that is the route im going down at the moment.

The problem with the capture is that i was not running it from within the OS. The initial guide i had gave the impression that it should be run from the boot image. But ive since found the correct guide that shows you run the script from within the OS and then it reboots and capture the wim. Similar to sccm some what except sccm you create a capture disk and run that from within the OS.

Im getting there its just annoying and if i can't get the 32bit boot image to work with 64bit os then im probably going to make the image in a vm.

[Darkend]Viper · 18 Sep 2013 at 20:31

Have you updated the deployment share and chose the option to completely rebuild the boot images?

I know what you mean about some guides giving out wrong info, I made that mistake first time round and wondered why it didn't work, so did some googling and found out you run it from the OS and it all works well.

If you press shift f10 when it loads into the deployment section you can get a command prompt and see whether it's actually loading things, or install driver manually to make sure it works.

anything I don't mind · 18 Sep 2013 at 21:15

I did it in vmware in the end because it was not working and it worked first time, without having to inject any drivers. So ill just use vmware to make and capture the image and integrate the drivers afterwards.