Automating Windows Image Creation

[Michael Bradley]

Creating optimized gold images for Horizon 8 virtual desk pools can be a time consuming and tedious process. Manual creation can lead to errors and inconsistencies. To accelerate your gold image creation process, check out this guide on Tech Zone. @Graeme Gordon and Hilko Latinga explain how to use the MDT Environment Automation tool included in the Windows OS Optimization Tool for Horizon to automate the creation of optimized Windows image for use with Horizon.

Using Automation to Create Optimized Windows Images for Horizon VMs

[Guy Leech]

Isn't MDT deprecated or at least the vbs component of it?

[Holly Lehman]

31 minutes ago, Guy said:

Isn't MDT deprecated or at least the vbs component of it?

@Michael Bradley for visibility on this question.

[Matthew Heldstab]

4 hours ago, Guy said:

Isn't MDT deprecated or at least the vbs component of it?

I am not sure that it is deprecated or not, but they have not released a build of it since January 2019 (Build 8456).  According to their release notes, it does not support Windows 11 (not that it won't work).

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54259

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/mdt/release-notes

 

[Graeme Gordon]

Microsoft have announced that they are not putting any further development into MDT. While they officially do not support it with Windows 11, it does work, and many people are using it to build Windows 111 images.

The guide and the MDT tools that we provide with OSOT give a quick and easy way to build an MDT server for automating the build of golden images. Longer term, we are evaluating how we can redesign the creation of golden images, including the automation.

 

[Gerard Strouth]

I love the created and changelog information! My biggest complaint has always been knowing when an article was created or last updated to know if it is still accurate.

[Sean Massey-1]

This is a great article for getting started, and I found it helpful in designing my process with Hashicorp Packer. 

[Dan]

ADK looks like it's current - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-started/adk-install (Michael Niehaus left Microsoft and I believe is still involved from an imaging/guidance perspective - certainly one of the experts I begin with - Johan Arwidmark is local to the Chicagoland area and would be another.

[Ivan de Mes]

On 5/29/2024 at 3:08 PM, Sean Massey said:

This is a great article for getting started, and I found it helpful in designing my process with Hashicorp Packer. 

I love Packer! I use it in combination with Azure DevOps to create automated images. MDT has its advantages and may still be valid for now, but I was also under assumption that it may be deprecated soon.

[Billy Anderson]

On 5/29/2024 at 1:25 AM, Graeme Gordon said:

Microsoft have announced that they are not putting any further development into MDT. While they officially do not support it with Windows 11, it does work, and many people are using it to build Windows 111 images.

The guide and the MDT tools that we provide with OSOT give a quick and easy way to build an MDT server for automating the build of golden images. Longer term, we are evaluating how we can redesign the creation of golden images, including the automation.

 

Hi Graeme, do you have any further info on your last sentence? Is Omnissa designing an image automation tool?

[Graeme Gordon]

Not at this time. This is still at the concept and planning stage with no firm commitment about how we move forward with this.

For now, we still supply OSOT integration with MDT, along with the associated guide, to help with automation.

[Mikhail Zuskov]

I've got a lot of customers with Microsoft Configuration Manager aka SCCM and  i use it a lot to build golden image from scratch. Other options are indeed MDT & Packer depending on the environment.

there was a good presentation about Ansible for Horizon builds during vUEC TechCon 2023 in NL 😉

 

It would be great to have a new version of this article focused on automating image build from A to Z using an product like Ansible, because there are a lot of customers trying to reinvent the wheel 🤔

[GoShen]

VBS will still work with MDT today as long as you add that component into the WinPE image. There are other methods that have come out and are coming out that use powershell to get around this. To what Mikail mentioned on SCCM, instead of using the MDT gather vbs script, you can replace it with a power shell script. 

Preferably, I want to get to the point where it is a native CM TS that builds the golden image. No MDT needed at all.