In the second of this series I am going to detail the installation and configuration of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. MDT 2010 can be downloaded from the Microsoft website

You will also need to download the Windows 7 Automated Installation kit from here, the file you download will be an ISO so you will need to produce a DVD from it to install the piece of software we need.

Windows 7 AIK

The first piece of software we need to install is the Windows 7 AIK. This is on the DVD you created from the downloaded ISO. Auto run the DVD and select the Windows AIK option from the screen shown below and follow the installation instructions.

That's all we need from that DVD so you can close the window.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010

We now need to install MDT 2010

Double click the file you downloaded earlier and follow the installation instructions

Configuring MDT 2010

Once the installation has completed then expand the start menu and select the Deployment Workbench

The first step is to create a deployment share

From the screen above right click on Deployment Shares and select New Deployment Share

Select a location for the deployment share
Select a share name (leaving the dollar sign in place will ensure it is hidden)
Give your share a descriptive name
The next screen asks you if MDT should ask if an image needs to be taken. If you are ever going to want MDT to capture an image you need to leave this ticked
This screen asks you if you want the local user to set the administrator password. I normally leave this unticked in our domain environment – I don't want users setting passwords
This screen asks if MDT should ask for a product key – leave this unticked

Check the summary page and then configure the deployment share

Add Windows 7 Source Files

After the deployment share has been installed we need to add the source files for Windows 7

Right click on the operating system option and select Import Operating System
Select Full Set Of Source Files
Select the location of the source files. In this case the Windows 7 DVD
Select a name for the destination directory

Check the summary page and click Next

MDT 2010 will now import the source files, click Finish once the import has finished

Update Deployment Share

Once the import of the Windows 7 source files is complete you will need to update the deployment share. Updating the deployment share creates the PXE boot images needed to boot your PC’s and install the images you create

Right click the deployment share and select Update Deployment Share
Select Completely Regenerate The Boot Images and click Next twice

All the boot images needed by MDT 2010 will now be created, we then need to use these images with Windows Deployment Services to allow PC’s to boot using PXE

Install Boot Images To Windows Deployment Services

The boot images are located in the deployment share you created earlier in this post in a folder called boot

There will be two images, LiteTouch for x86 and x64. There will also be .wim, .iso and .xml versions. Remember the location of the .wim files and then open Windows Deployment Services

Expand Windows Deployment Services, right click on boot images and select Add Boot Image
Browse for the location where MDT 2010 stores its boot images and select the x86 .wim file and click Next
Enter a name and description for the boot image and click Next twice

Multicast Deployment

The final step in this basic configuration of MDT 2010 is to enable multicast deployment. On its own MDT 2010 doesn’t support multicast deployments and for this reason it uses Windows Deployment Services to send out the multicast traffic.

To enable multicast right click on the deployment share and select Properties

In the dialogue box that appears put a tick in the Enable Multicast For This Deployment Share option and click OK

That completes the basic configuration of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. The next post will go through the steps needed to deploy Windows 7 using the source files we copied to the deployment share earlier.