Deployment And Imaging Tools Environment Download Windows 10 Free
Lisabeth Klatt
To successfully deploy the Windows 10 operating system and applications for your organization, understand the available tools to help with the process. In this article, you'll learn about the most commonly used tools for Windows 10 deployment.
Microsoft provides many tools, services, and solutions. These tools include Windows Deployment Services (WDS), the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT), the User State Migration Tool (USMT), Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM), Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE), and Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE). These tools aren't a complete solution on their own. Combine these tools with solutions like Configuration Manager to get a complete deployment solution.
MDT is a free deployment solution from Microsoft. It provides end-to-end guidance, best practices, and tools for planning, building, and deploying Windows operating systems. MDT builds on top of the core deployment tools in the Windows ADK by contributing guidance, reducing complexity, and adding critical features for an enterprise-ready deployment solution.
The Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) and Windows PE add-on has the tools you need to customize Windows images for large-scale deployment, and to test the quality and performance of your system, its added components, and the applications running on it. The Windows ADK includes:
Windows ADK contains core assessment and deployment tools that IT Pros can use to deploy Windows 10 company-wide, including the User State Migration Tool (USMT) and Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT).
Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) - The ADK includes tools that that support the image cutomization and deployment process, including WinPE to boot your PC and work with your images, SIM to help you create unattend files, DISM, and more.
Windows PE image - Create a base Windows PE image and bootable media using the ADK and Windows PE add-ons. The Windows ADK and Windows PE Add-ons include a basic Windows PE image. The basic image works for many scenarios, but can be customized to add drivers that are needed for a device to boot, BitLocker, PowerShell, or other tools that you choose to use in your deployment.
When you design your deployment, consider the environment you're deploying to so you can decide what's best for you. Consider how much flexibility you want for your deployment, how valuable the time it takes to deploy an image is, and how many different images you want to maintain.
Monolithic reference image (thick image): If you only have a single hardware configuration that will only ship to one country, and has applications that never need to be updated, it could be best for you to create a single monolithic image that includes all of your customizations. This type of imaging is useful for Build-to-stock scenarios and has the fastest deployment time, at the expense of flexibility. If you have multiple hardware configurations to support, you may need to maintain several different images, or frequently update the image to include the most recent apps, drivers, updates, etc.
Thin image If you have several different hardware configurations with different application and localization needs, it might make sense to start with a base Windows image that is customized as part of the deployment process. This style of deployment takes more time than using a monolithic image because customizations are done during the deployment process, but if you're starting with a base image you only have to maintain the collateral that is used during the imaging process and not the image itself.
Most deployments fall somewhere in between the two examples below, for example a customized base image that includes a set of customizations that apply to all PCs, with customizations to finalize the deployment added later. It's up to you to take advantage of the various cusomization opportunities to create a deployment that best suits your environment.
Once you have a plan for your image design, hardware, collateral, and an image to start with, you can design a deployment that leverages the various servicing environments and phases available in Windows.
The Unattend framework is a customization framework that allows you to configure customizations to be made during various phases of the deployment process. It isn't a single servicing environment or phase during a deployment where you can use it to make changes, so you can use a single Unattend file that includes customizations for all of the phases. For example The same unattend file can be used to make changes to WinPE, an offline image, Sysprep, first boot, audit mode, and the first time a user logs into Windows.
You can optionally remove the UserID and UserPassword entries from Bootstrap.ini so that users performing PXE boot are prompted to provide credentials with permission to connect to the deployment share. Setting SkipBDDWelcome=NO enables the welcome screen that displays options to run the deployment wizard, run DaRT tools (if installed), exit to a Windows PE command prompt, set the keyboard layout, or configure a static IP address. In this example, we're skipping the welcome screen and providing credentials.
If your organization has a Microsoft Software Assurance agreement, you also can subscribe to another Microsoft Desktop Optimization Package (MDOP) license (at an extra cost). Included in MDOP is Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT), which contains tools that can help you troubleshoot MDT deployments, and troubleshoot Windows itself.
Copy the two tools CAB files from C:\Program Files\Microsoft DaRT\v10 (Toolsx86.cab and Toolsx64.cab) to the production deployment share at D:\MDTProduction\Tools\x86 and D:\MDTProduction\Tools\x64, respectively.
As referenced in Windows 10 deployment scenarios and tools, Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)-based deployments are becoming more common. In fact, when you create a generation 2 virtual machine in Hyper-V, you get a UEFI-based computer. During deployment, MDT automatically detects that you've an UEFI-based machine and creates the partitions UEFI requires. You don't need to update or change your task sequences in any way to accommodate UEFI.
MDT is a unified collection of tools, processes, and guidance for automating desktop and server deployment. You can use it to create reference images or as a complete deployment solution. MDT is one of the most important tools available to IT professionals today.
In addition to reducing deployment time and standardizing desktop and server images, MDT enables you to more easily manage security and ongoing configurations. MDT builds on top of the core deployment tools in the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) with more guidance and features designed to reduce the complexity and time required for deployment in an enterprise environment.
A deployment share is essentially a folder on the server that is shared and contains all the setup files and scripts needed for the deployment solution. It also holds the configuration files (called rules) that are gathered when a machine is deployed. These configuration files can reach out to other sources, like a database, external script, or web server to get more settings for the deployment. For Lite Touch deployments, it's common to have two deployment shares: one for creating the reference images and one for deployment. For Zero Touch, it's common to have only the deployment share for creating reference images because Configuration Manager deploys the image in the production environment.
DISM is an administrator-level tool to repair Windows images and make changes to Windows installation media. It replaces many other Windows deployment tools, such as PEimg, Intlcfg, ImageX, and Package Manager.
Administrators can access the DISM tool through the command line (DISM.exe) or from Windows PowerShell. DISM is built into the Windows operating system (OS). It is also distributed in the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK). ADK contains numerous tools to customize Windows images for large-scale deployment. DISM is one of them.
When using DISM to service Windows images, admins must check the compatibility of those images with both the DISM version and Windows OS version. The OS where DISM runs is known as the host deployment environment.
Also, there are certain Windows host deployment environments where the target image (the image being serviced) is not supported. For instance, target images of Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 or WinPE 4.0 (x86 or x64) are not supported in a Windows 11 host deployment environment. Similarly, target images of Windows 11 or WinPE for Windows 11 are not supported in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008, WinPE 4.0 (x86 and x64) and WinPE 3.0 (x86 and x64) host deployment environments.
The Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) has tools for customizing Windows images for large-scale deployments. MDT uses the ADK to modify the Windows Preinstallation Environment bootable image.
In this procedure, you download various VMware agents and tools, as well as a couple of third-party tools, and copy these installers to the correct sub-folders of the VMware folder on the deployment share.
An OS imaging and deployment tool, also known as an operating system deployment tool, is a software solution used to automate the process of deploying operating systems on multiple computers or devices within an organization.
There are three versions of ManageEngine OS Deployer: Free Edition, Professional, and Enterprise. The Free Edition supports up to four workstations and one server. The Professional version is suitable for LAN computers with online/offline imaging, SID handling, hardware-independent deployment, and more.
SmartDeploy is a desktop management solution with computer imaging and app deployment capabilities. The user can create one Windows golden image and deploy it to a PC made by any manufacturer or model). Single image management is much more efficient than trying to deploy lots of OS images separately. SmartDeploy can simultaneously deploy to 25 devices or more.
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