Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007

I recently had an important client who asked me to install Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) and configure it to deploy Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003—all within a day. Although I accomplished the task, I hit some bumps along the way. In this article I share the process I followed, the problems I encountered, and the solutions I employed. Because this is a high-level overview of OS deployment through SCCM, I don’t discuss SCCM installation. The article assumes that you already have SCCM 2007 installed, as well as a working knowledge of it. (For information about SCCM, see the Learning Path.)

Getting Started
Before you try to deploy an OS, you need to ensure that your environment is healthy.

For more OS deployment tips, see the Microsoft Operating System Deployment Checklists website.

Configuring the SCCM Server for OS Deployment
The first step in OS deployment is to prepare the server for the OS images.

Although SCCM 2007 R2 can deploy OSs to unknown computers, I recommend deploying only to computers for which you have the MAC address. Deploying to an unknown computer can result in SCCM wiping and reinstalling the computer.

In my case, I was deploying to a new computer that didn’t have an AD account and wasn’t known to SCCM. Therefore, I needed to create an SCCM record and add the computer to a collection.

Open SCCM and navigate to Site Database, Computer Management, Operating System Deployment, Computer Associations, Import Computer. Select Manual and enter the computer name and MAC address. Force an update of the All Systems collection (by first selecting the Rebuild action, then the Refresh action) to display the new computer.

Next, you need to create a collection where you can target your OS deployments. Create a collection called OSDeployment, and use a static rule to add to the collection any computers that need the OS. (If you’re just doing initial testing and need a controlled environment, add only your test machines.) Another option for bulk deployments is to create dynamic collections with membership based on attributes such as existing OS and computer locations.

Finally, create an application package as follows, so you can actually deploy the SCCM client to new installations.

Next, you need to create a task sequence to deploy the OS and SCCM client package. (For more information about deploying images, see the Microsoft TechNet article “How to Deploy Operating System Images to a Computer”; for more information about creating a task sequence, see “How to Create a Task Sequence to Install an Existing Operating System Image Package.”

By default, the disk formatting portion of the OS deployment is quite slow. To improve the speed, you can change the disk partition to the format and partition option, which has a fast format option. Add the rule to prevent formatting of the disk if a cache exists that SCCM created by default, as Figure 4 shows.

Next, advertise the task sequence to the collection you created, by adding a mandatory advertisement. In my case, I wanted the advertisement take place immediately because I had a controlled test collection. In a live environment, you might want to set a certain time to start the advertisement. You could advertise to the unknown computers collection, to allow OS deployment on unknown computers. However, you should be careful doing this, as I discussed previously. In fact, you should be careful with this advertisement in general, because if you create the advertisement to the wrong collection of computers, you could end up rebuilding all the computers in your company.

Deploying the OS
If you configured everything correctly, your test machine will boot over the network and install the OS when you turn it on. Although I used a Vista image for illustration purposes, you can use any OS for which you have a WIM. I later prepared a Windows Server 2003 WIM for the client by installing Server 2003 on a virtual machine (VM). I patched the Server 2003 installation, making sure not to install virtual additions. I downloaded the correct version of Sysprep, ran Sysprep with the /generalize, /oobe, /shutdown, and /reseal switches, then booted into WinPE and captured a WIM file. I then imported the WIM file in SCCM and followed the steps I outline in this article.

If you encounter problems, view SCCM’s message and log files for help. Additional troubleshooting tips include the following:

Hands Off
Now that you have an environment capable of deploying an OS contained in a WIM file, you can build on it to perform more automated OS configuration, services and application deployment, patch deployment, and driver deployment. Once SCCM is fully configured, you have a complete zero-touch deployment solution.