Review General Known Issues, Limitations, and Recommendations for MDT

The following are a list of known general issues, limitations, and recommendations that relate to MDT:

· MDT supports the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) for Windows 7 and Windows AIK Supplement for Windows 7 SP1, Windows PE version 3.0, Configuration Manager 2012, and Configuration Manager 2007 R3.

· Language packs, applications, and device drivers that are disabled in the Deployment Workbench are not installed, unless you add them manually to the CustomSettings.ini file.

· When you select the Install Language Pack Offline action, you must select language pack CAB files within subfolders of the main package.

· When you specify IP addresses (for example, when identifying Domain Name System [DNS] and Windows Internet Naming Service [WINS] servers), they must exclude unnecessary zero prefixes, which will be misevaluated. For example, if the IP address is typed 10.010.10.1, the Deployment Workbench evaluates it as 10.8.10.1. To avoid this problem, enter IP addresses carefully, and do not add unnecessary zeroes.

· When specifying a Run As account, you must specify a user who is a member of the Administrators group on the server. Otherwise, the account will not have sufficient privileges to access network connections established by administrators.

· When creating deployment shares on computers that have 8.3 file names disabled (see the Microsoft Support article How to Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions), the Deployment Workbench fails to generate the Windows PE image. If 8.3 file names have been disabled, re-enable them by setting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation registry value to 0.

· Within a folder, avoid creating a subfolder and a file with the same name. For example, within the Files folder, you should not name a subfolder Item, and then create a file named Item.

· When performing an upgrade, network and media deployment shares created in earlier versions of MDT or BDD must have valid shares.

· If custom images captured by directly running ImageX (without using MDT to capture the image) do not work properly, troubleshoot the issues by capturing and adding the image using MDT to ensure that all prerequisites are configured properly. Add Setup files to the Deployment Workbench by adding a complete operating system distribution or by pointing the Deployment Wizard to the location of source files. When manually capturing images, use the Wimscript.ini file that MDT supplies in the \Distribution\tools\_platform folder, where platform is either x86 (for 32-bit) or x64 (for 64-bit), to exclude the folders or files from the image. Also be aware of preexisting Unattend.xml files in the image. Specify the correct /FLAGS value when capturing Windows Vista images using ImageX or Windows Deployment Services capture processes.

· At the completion of MDT deployment, a summary page displays warnings about errors encountered during the process. (This page is not displayed when conducting the Server Core installation option of the Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 operating system, because a Server Core installation does not include the Windows Internet Explorer® components required.) It is possible for deployment to finish but still trigger several errors or warnings if the errors are nonfatal. It is useful to inspect these errors and warnings—for example, by opening corresponding logs files and running verification tests—and determine whether they are unexpected.

· When deploying a custom Windows XP image, you might receive a warning similar to “Warning: The \\Server\Share\Operating Systems\XPSP2_CI\i386\winnt32.exe is not available. Unable to ensure Sysprep files are the right version.” This error does not prevent successful deployment, and you can disregard the warning.

· Some device drivers can stall the deployment process. If this happens, isolate the device driver and remove it from the target computer, or contact the vendor for an updated version of the device driver.

· The error “Cannot Find Driver Path” can appear if you choose to optimize a Windows PE image and select drivers that are not available from the distribution point. To work around this problem, select the Completely Regenerate The Boot Images option.

· The USMT fails if you enter a path surrounded by quotation marks that also ends in a backslash (\). To prevent problems, simply leave off the final backslash when specifying a folder. For example, the following paths will cause an error:

· “D:\”

· “D:\folder\”

However, these paths will not cause an error:

· D:

· D:\

· D:\folder\

· D:\folder

· “D:\folder”

· “D:\\”

· “D:”

· USMT version 3.0.1 .msi files are supported to migrate user data during deployment. Perform the following steps to install USMT 3.0.1:

a. Install Windows Installer version 3.1 or later; otherwise, deployment will fail during USMT installation. To install Windows Installer 3.1—and for more information—see the Microsoft Support article Windows Installer 3.1 v2 (3.1.4000.2435) is available.

b. Install package 929761, which accompanies the Microsoft Support article When you run Wusa.exe together with the /quiet option to try to install certain software packages on a Windows Vista–based computer, the installation fails.

c. Copy the USMT 3.0.1 .msi files to tools\_platform, where platform is either x86 (for 32-bit) or x64 (for 64-bit) in the distribution point.

· Configure the Internet Explorer home page using CustomSettings.ini, in the MDT DB, or by using the Windows Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK). Configuring the Internet Explorer home page works only in Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP unattended installation. The System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) does not support configuring the Internet Explorer home page for Windows XP images.

· During LTI deployments to new computers, some pages (such as the User Locale and Keyboard Locale pages) do not display text correctly if required fonts are not installed in Windows PE. In the Refresh Computer scenario, the same symptoms appear if required fonts are not installed in the operating system being replaced.

· Some keyboard layouts might require language packs or input method editors that MDT does not automatically include in the Windows PE startup image. MDT does not verify that the keyboard layout is valid. For more information, see the Microsoft Support article How to add Input Method Editor (IME) support to Windows PE 2.0.

· A maximum of two WINS server addresses can be added when configuring static IP configuration settings for a network adapter. If more than two WINS server addresses are added using MDT, only the first two WINS server addresses are used.

· Hash value errors may occur in Configuration Manager 2012 or Configuration Manager 2007 R3 during download on demand or when creating a media deployment DVD. This can occur if the packages on the distribution points are inconsistent with the information in the Configuration Manager database.

To correct hash value errors for Configuration Manager 2012

a. Click Start, point to All Programs, and then point to Microsoft System Center 2012. Point to Configuration Manager, and then click Configuration Manager Console.

b. In the Configuration Manager console, in the Navigation pane, click Software Library.

c. In the Software Library workspace, go to Overview/Application Management/Packages.

d. In the preview pane, click package_name (where package_name is the name of the package that is inconsistent).

e. On the Ribbon, on the Home tab, in the Properties group, click Properties.

The package_name Properties dialog box opens (where package_name is the name of the package).

f. In the package_name Properties dialog box (where package_name is the name of the package), on the Content Locations tab, in Distribution points or distribution point groups box, click distribution_point (where distribution_point is the name of the distribution point or distribution point group), then click Redistribute.

g. In the Configuration Manager dialog box, click OK.

h. Repeat steps f through g for each distribution point or distribution point group.

i. In the package_name Properties dialog box, click OK.

j. Repeat steps d through i for each package that is inconsistent.

To correct value errors for Configuration Manager 2007 R3

a. Click Start, point to All Programs, and then point to Microsoft System Center. Point to Configuration Manager 2007, and then click ConfigMgr Console.

b. In the Configuration Manager console navigation pane, go to System Center Configuration Manager/Site Database/Computer Management/Software Distribution/Packages/package_name/Distribution Points (where package_name is the name of the package that is inconsistent).

c. In the results pane, click distribution_point (where distribution_point is the name of the distribution point).

d. In the actions pane, click Refresh Distribution Point.

e. In the Confirm Refresh Distribution Point dialog box, click Yes.

f. Repeat steps c through e for each distribution point.

g. Repeat steps b through f for each package that is inconsistent.

· When deploying Windows Server 2003 using Configuration Manager 2012 or Configuration Manager 2007 R3, the deployment process does not automatically copy the Windows installation files to the %WinDir%\Source folder, as it does for other deployment methods. As a result, Configuration Manager 2012 or Configuration Manager 2007 R3 can display dialog boxes requesting missing DLLs needed to complete a server role installation. As a workaround, add a step to the task sequence to copy the source files and set the registry subkeys that identify the source folder (SourcePath and ServicePackSourcePath in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\setup).

· In LTI deployments, you set several kinds of information in the Create Task Sequence Wizard. The UI does not provide an option to edit this information at a later time. However, you can edit the information directly in the Unattend.xml file (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2) or in Sysprep.inf and Unattend.txt (for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003). The information includes:

· Organization name

· Full name

· Internet Explorer home page

· Local Administrator password

· No user state configuration settings can be or need to be specified using the CustomSettings.ini file for Configuration Manager scenarios. The network location is determined automatically by the Request State Store task.

· In Configuration Manager 2012 or Configuration Manager 2007 R3 deployments, you can install multiple application packages on a computer by specifying them in the CustomSettings.ini file according to the following parameters:

· Specify a base variable named PACKAGES in the task sequence in the Install Software task.

· Each PACKAGES variable name should have a suffix starting with 001.

· The PACKAGESxxx value should have the format PACKAGEID:ProgramName (use a colon between items).

· The ProgramName value is case-sensitive.

The following is an example of specifying packages in CustomSettings.ini:

PACKAGES001=DEP0002B:Install Office 2007

PACKAGES002=DEP00011:Install Office Communicator

· In LTI New Computer deployments, applications marked as hidden in the Deployment Workbench are not installed when you do not skip the Application page in the Deployment Wizard and specify the application globally unique identifier (GUID) in CustomSettings.ini. Specify hidden applications using the MandatoryApplications property instead of the Applications property.

· Close the Configuration Manager console before running the integration option from MDT. Otherwise, some files may not be properly updated.

· During the Scanstate and Loadstate processes, multiple copies of log files may be created. You can use a new USMT template for excluding the log files or log directories while running Scanstate and Loadstate.

· New Computer and Replace Computer deployment scenarios format Disk 0 by default. Using MDT on computers with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partitions or multiple fixed or external hard disks may require additional configuration and scripting in addition to thorough testing.

· The Task Sequencer will not accept XML files that contain Unicode content (from an XML file encoded as UTF-8). Attempting to do use XML files results in a task sequence failure. The Task Sequencer does not properly deal with encoded UTF-7 data: It does not cause a failure, but it does cause the data to be translated unexpectedly.

· After uninstalling MDT using the Control Panel Add or Remove Programs item, the Distribution share directory (if created) must be removed manually. MDT does not remove files or folders that it did not initially install.

· When using MDT extensions (add-in wizards) with Configuration Manager 2012 or Configuration Manager 2007 R3, MDT must be installed on every server running Configuration Manager 2012 or Configuration Manager 2007 R3 used to administer operating system deployments.

· The Priority property in CustomSettings.ini has no maximum line length. However, if the property name is longer than 55 characters when the Configure Database Wizard runs, the wizard will truncate the Priority property, and you will need to manually edit the property. As a workaround, run the Configure Database Wizard before performing any other customization, or clear the check boxes for queries in the wizard that are not needed.

· MDT supports deployment from a UFD. See the Windows AIK for information about preparing the device, then copy (using the xcopy command) all files and folders from the \Media\content folder to the UFD.

· Dialing properties that are not configured, even if present in the answer file, include the country code, area code, long-distance access, and dialing rules. To work around this issue, configure dialing rules by creating and testing a .reg file in a lab environment, and then import that .reg file as a custom task during the task sequence.

· When deploying an image that has never been started or that is missing the \%SystemRoot%\Prefetch directory, updates installed using Setup.exe or PkgMgr.exe can fail. As a workaround, create the \%SystemRoot%\Prefetch directory in the operating system image. This error does not occur when you build the image using Windows Vista with SP1 or later.

· The media International Organization for Standardization (ISO) image must be smaller than 2.2 GB for media deployment to a VM running in Microsoft Virtual PC versions prior to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 R2. If the ISO image is larger than 2.2 GB, the deployment may result in an error. This limitation no longer exists in Virtual PC 2007, Virtual Server 2005 R2, or Hyper-V.