Boot Image Templates (Part 2)

Now that you have had some time to digest Boot Image Templates (Part 1), it is time to focus on Feature Packs.

Feature Packs have a few different names.  In the Deployment Workbench (MDT), they are referenced as "Feature Packs".  In the Boot Image Template XML files they are "Components".  These "Components" are actually part of ADK (Assessment and Deployment Toolkit), or AIK (Automated Installation Kit), where they are referenced as OC's (Optional Components).  And finally in DISM, they can be installed with the /Add-Package command.

I almost forgot, they are also referenced as Feature Names.

If you roll on over to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Bin and open a file called FeatureNames.xml some things will start to make more sense.  In this XML file you will see a "feature id=" with some cool names like winpe-mdac or winpe-hta.  These names correspond with ADK Packages in the following two directories
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\WinPE_OCs"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs"

In these directories you will find the Packages (CAB) that are installed by MDT in the Boot Images.

The first thing you should do is make a backup copy of this file.  So create a copy in this directory as FeatureNames.xml.default.

What you realize is that there is also an option="exclude" entry in this XML file that corresponds with MDT.  Any entry in this XML file that has the "exclude" option, is not displayed in the Deployment Share Properties.  Let's have a look . . .

So where we are going with is that maybe, just maybe there are some Feature Packs / Feature Names / OC's that I know I will never implement in a Boot Image, so why not exclude these from MDT.  In my FeatureNames.xml I have the following lines (10-15)

<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-ja-jp">Japanese (JA-JP) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-ko-kr">Korean (KO-KR) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-zh-cn">Chinese (ZH-CN) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-zh-hk">Chinese (ZH-HK) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-zh-tw">Chinese (ZH-TW) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fonts-legacy">Legacy fonts</feature>

So if I change these from what is above, to the following:

<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-ja-jp" option="exclude">Japanese (JA-JP) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-ko-kr" option="exclude">Korean (KO-KR) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-zh-cn" option="exclude">Chinese (ZH-CN) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-zh-hk" option="exclude">Chinese (ZH-HK) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fontsupport-zh-tw" option="exclude">Chinese (ZH-TW) language pack</feature>
<feature id="winpe-fonts-legacy" option="exclude">Legacy fonts</feature>

Then MDT will now look like so:

Looks much nicer and manageable for me to work with.

Spend some time reviewing the Feature Packs on Technet to understand what they are.  In my next post I will explain why other Feature Names are hidden, and how we separate Packs into separate Boot Images.

Boot Image Templates (Part 1)

So by now you have seen my last post of the release of my WinPE Menu.  Well before we get to using the WinPE Menu, we need to understand what we are trying to accomplish.
MDT allows for two types of Boot Images.  The first is LiteTouchPE.  This is the primary Boot Image, and it is what everyone uses for imaging computers.  The secondary Boot Image is called Generic.  If you build one, you will have a Command Prompt.  Close the Command Prompt and your computer will reboot.

I have never been a fan of the default naming convention of this screen, so let's make some modifications.  Change everything up to match the image below.

While you are at it, select x64 under the Platform drop down and make the changes in the image below.  Don't forget to clear the Custom background bitmap file and the Scratch space size.

Press Apply and OK.

Now back to the templates.  What we just did was to enable the creation of the Generic Boot Image.  We are not going to update the Deployment Share yet, so hold tight.

So here is how it works.  Let's assume we build a new LiteTouchPE Boot Image from scratch.  To determine what is installed in LiteTouchPE, MDT will gather information from the MDT Template LiteTouchPE.xml first.  This is the baseline. On a standard installation, this file will exist at:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\LiteTouchPE.xml

Here is what the standard MDT 2012 Update 1 LiteTouchPE.xml looks like.  Look it over.  If you have built a LiteTouchPE Boot Image, then you should recognize this content.  These are the base Deployment Scripts.

So let's break down the process.  When creating a Boot Image, this is the baseline.  After that, settings that are configured by the MDT Deployment Share in the Control\Settings.xml will populate the Settings Group.  There is no point in modifying these values as they are overwritten by the Deployment Share.  We'll cover that on another post soon enough.

The Components Group contains the Feature Packs (WinPE OC's).  By default we see that the following are installed on every LiteTouchPE Boot Image:
winpe-hta
winpe-scripting
winpe-wmi
winpe-securestartup
winpe-fmapi

In the Deployment Share properties, in the Feature Packs section, we do not have an option to install these components.  That is because they are identified in here already, so there is no need to give you the option to install these Feature Packs as they are installed by default.  Don't worry, I will a another write up on Feature Packs soon.

The Driver and Packages Group is populated automatically by our Selection Profile.  Nothing to hard code in here.

The Content Group contains all the Deployment Scripts and Tools.

The Exits Group contains a section for optional scripts to run when building the Boot Images.  This will be covered heavily in a separate post.

Now for a quick peek at the Generic Template.  That is called the Generic.xml.  Looking at this file it is easy to understand why this Boot Image launches a Command Prompt only.  That is because there is almost nothing in this Boot Image.

So we WANT our Generic Boot Image to have our Deployment Scripts installed and not just a Command Prompt.  So our goal for now is to mirror the files.

Replace Generic.xml
Copy C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\LiteTouchPE.xml to LiteTouchPE.xml.default.  Now we have two copies of LiteTouchPE.xml.  One we can modify, and one we can leave alone.
Rename C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\Generic.xml to Generic.xml.default
Copy C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\LiteTouchPE.xml and rename to Generic.xml

At this point we should have the following Template files:
 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\LiteTouchPE.xml
 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\LiteTouchPE.xml.default
 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\Generic.xml
 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit\Templates\Generic.xml.default

So at this point, if we were to update our Deployment Share in MDT and Regenerate the Boot Images, then we will have two identical Boot Images for LiteTouchPE and Generic since they are using the LiteTouchPE Templates for both.  Keep in mind if we are going to integrate the WinPE Menu in the Generic Boot Image, then this is what we have to do.

Time to stop here for now and move onto Feature Packs in my next post.

WinPE Menu on Codeplex

Well I finally got around to posting my custom WinPE Menu.  You can find it on Codeplex for the Source Code and some simple instructions.  Full instructions will be posted over the next few days, as well as some additional Plugins to add additional functionality.

Note that this has been tested on WinPE 3 and WinPE 4 . . . now that Windows 8.1 is out, I will have to do some testing to see how it works with the updated bits.

More to come.  David

MDT Deployment Share Properties

Tools Required
MDT

Key Terms / Acronyms
MDT Deployment Share - The Deployment Share in MDT (Not the file system or network share)
%InstallDir% - Path to the MDT Installation Directrory.  This is typically C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
OC's - Optional Components.  Term is used in ADK


Now the fun starts.  Lets take a look at the MDT Deployment Share configuration.  Right click on the MDT Deployment Share and click on Properties

General
In the Platforms Supported section, uncheck the x64 option.  Once we get things going for x86, we will add this back later.  Press [Apply] to save the changes, then click on the Rules tab.  It is important to press [Apply] whenever we make changes as MDT has been known to lockup when the Deployment Share Properties is open.

Rules

This is the CustomSettings.ini that is used by LiteTouch.  We will leave this alone for now.  Press the Windows PE tab.

Windows PE

We are not going to make any changes to this section, but I will explain what everything does.  Most of these settings will be changed later.

• Platform
• There are two options for Platform, x86 and x64.  Since we disabled x64 in the General tab, we do not need to configure any settings for x64, so we will leave this alone
• General > Lite Touch Boot Image Settings
• Generate a Lite Touch Windows PE WIM file
• Obviously we can't change this option, but this is the primary Boot Image used for imaging computers.  The created WIM will be saved to %DeployRoot%\Boot
• Generate a Lite Touch bootable ISO image
• This is enabled by default.  The created ISO will be saved to %DeployRoot%\Boot
• General > Windows PE Customizations
• Custom background bitmap file
• This is selected by default.  We will configure a proper Wallpaper later
• Extra directory to add
• We can create a directory and add some utilities like CMTrace or BGInfo.  That will be covered later so hold off for now
• Scratch space size
• This is defaulted to 32MB.  When WinPE is booted, the boot.wim is uncompressed to X:\.  The drive is a RAM Disk.  Scratch space allows room for log files or temporary files to be written to X:\.  The downside is that we need to make sure that there is enough RAM on the computer to hold the uncompressed WIM and the scratch space (which can be configured to 512MB).  Change this value to 128 and then press [Apply]
• General > Generic Boot Image Settings
• This allows us to create a secondary Boot Image and ISO.  We will be using this later in this Guide

Press the Features tab

• Features > Feature Packs
• Feature Packs are also known as OC's (Optional Components) by ADK, and as Components in some of the XML files.  These Feature Packs when selected, are installed into the Boot.wim to add additional capabilities.  All the Feature Packs are included with ADK, so that is why we needed to install it with MDT.  We are going to heavily customize later in the Guide so we will leave it alone for now.  We should have MDAC checked by default.
• Press the Drivers and Patches tab.

• Drivers and Patches
• Selection Profile - We will customize this after we add some drivers, so we will leave it alone for now.

Let's press [OK] and get out of Properties now.  The next step is to add some drivers.

MDT Create a Deployment Share

Tools Required
MDT

Key Terms / Acronyms
%DeployRoot% - The location of the Deployment Share on your file system (eg. C:\DeploymentShare)
%DeploymentShare% - The Network Share of the %DeployRoot% (eg. \\ComputerName\DeploymentShare$)



Now the fun starts.  You should have a nice Tile on your Start screen for Microsoft Deployment.  Let's launch it for the first time.

• Right click on Deployment Shares > New Deployment Share

• New Deployment Share Wizard > Path
• Enter the Deployment share path
• [Next]

• New Deployment Share Wizard > Share
• Enter a Share name
• [Next]

• New Deployment Share Wizard > Descriptive Name
• Enter a Deployment share description
• [Next]

• New Deployment Share Wizard > Options
• Uncheck everything, we are not going to make any images
• [Next]

• New Deployment Share Wizard > Summary
• [Next]

When the Deployment Share has been completed, you will have a summary of what was completed.

If we did everything right, we should now have a Deployment Share in MDT

Other References
Petril: How to Create a Deployment Share
msadministrator: Creating an MDT Deployment Share

Next Post: MDT Deployment Share Properties

Install Notepad++

Download
Notepad++

Reference
Notepad++ Documentation

Notepad++ Plugins
Compare, XML Tools

Notepad++ is a great tool for editing Text and XML files.  There will be a few that we will have to modify when creating our WinPE 4 Boot Image.

• Run the Notepad++ Installer from +WinPE Downloads\Notepad++
• Installer Language (your call)
• [OK]
• Welcome to the Notepad++ vX.X.X Setup
• [Next]
• License Agreement
• [I Agree]
• Choose Install Location
• [Next]
• Choose Components
• [Next]
• Choose Components (seems repetitive)
• [Next]
• Completing the Notepad++ vX.X.X Setup
• [Finish]

By this time, Notepad++ should have opened.  Now we have some minor configuration to do to get it running for us

• From the File Menu, choose Plugins > Plugin Manager > Show Plugin Manager
• Plugin Manager
• Check Compare
• Check XML Tools
• [Install]
• Plugin Manager (Popup Window)
• [Yes] to restart Notepad++

You should now have Compare and XML Tools installed as Plugins

• From the File Menu, choose Settings > Preferences...
• On the MISC. tab, uncheck "Remember current session for next launch"
• [Close]

This completes the software installations :)

Next Post: MDT Create a Deployment Share

Install Microsoft DaRT

Download
Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance 2013

Reference
Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP)
Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT)

Key Terms / Acronyms
DaRT - Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit
MDOP - Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack


Hopefully you have access to the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance (MDOP) and can install the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT).  If you don't, then this post won't apply to you.  If you do then complete the following steps

• Extract the ISO that you downloaded to +WinPE Downloads\Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance 2013\Media 
• Run MSDaRT801.msi from +WinPE Downloads\Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance 2013\Media\DaRT\Installers\x64
• Welcome to the Microsoft DaRT 8.0 SP1 Setup Wizard
• [Next]
• End-User License Agreement
• [I Agree]
• Microsoft Update
• Use Microsoft Update when I check for updates. (recommended)
• [Next]
• Select Installation Folder
• [Next]
• Select Options
• [Next]
• Ready to Install
• [Install]
• Completing the Microsoft DaRT 8.0 SP1 Setup Wizard
• [Finish]

Next Post: Install Notepad++

Install Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

Download
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Update 1

Reference
Solution Accelerators: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

Key Terms / Acronyms
MDT - Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

Install Microsoft Windows ADK

Download
Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 8

Reference
Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK)
Installing the Windows ADK

Key Terms / Acronyms
ADK - Assessment and Deployment Kit

WinPE Prerequisites

Tools Required
Internet Explorer (or other browser to download a bunch of stuff)

Reference
Microsoft Walkthrough: Create a Custom Windows PE Image

Key Terms / Acronyms
+WinPE Downloads - The directory that all your WinPE Software was downloaded to

Getting Started

Tools Required
Internet Explorer (or other browser to download a bunch of stuff)

Reference
Microsoft Walkthrough: Create a Custom Windows PE Image

Key Terms / Acronyms
+WinPE Downloads - The directory that all your WinPE Software was downloaded to