Ever have a Task Sequence in MDT which you customized and configured to use a specific driver profile, then having to create a second one just for another model and you have to copy everything over?

Well, I did and didn’t like it.

So according to Johan Arwidmark [if you’re into MDT and don’t already know this guy, get to know him!], this is possible in various ways.

Now while I used his approach, I didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t easily re-usable and I still had to provide various data myself. And I’m lazy, so I don’t want that!

In case you’re using Microsoft’s awesome Microsoft Deployment Toolkit [MDT] solution, there might be a thing you don’t often do, but can take up  a while of your time and can have quite some impact if you forget a few steps..

What I’m talking about is updating/regenerating your MDT Boot Images and replacing them within Windows Deployment Services [WDS].

Of course such a thing is ideally done through PowerShell as it automates and thus limits the amount of human errors possible.

Today I was playing around on some machines on which I noticed the Power Plans were set incorrect, Balanced on a server :'(

Now of course I can do this manually, or I can use PowerShell instead!

Tools not scripts

Since I want to use this more often and want to create my own “toolbelt” [aka module with common tools], I’ve decided to make the solution as advanced functions, not just scripts.

A quick post this time about something that might be helpful for others, something that saves me from typing too much 🙂

I’ve noticed over the last week that I’ve been doing various remoting commands through Invoke-Command to the same machines, which require additional credentials to access.

Why re-type something when you can automate it 🙂

Before

I used to have to do the following:

As you might have noticed, I’m having fun playing around with SCCM lately and have really noticed that PowerShell is king here.

While the application has great potential, I personally feel that the GUI is lacking functionality which you can only obtain through PowerShell. Of course this isn’t a problem, merely a challenge in some cases, but I feel that they could’ve stepped up a bit. It at least explains why I see so many SCCM admins playing around with PowerShell.

I’m in the finishing stages of a new SCCM deployment, but also in the process of an Active Directory consolidation at the moment, and ran in to the following issue:

A machine from Domain A has been re-imaged using SCCM to run in Domain B. SCCM has a Device Collection X for Domain A and Device Collection Y for Domain B. Device Collection Y has a Deployment for a specific VPN Application that’s required, otherwise it won’t run.