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| | Author | Messages | |
David
Posts:50
 | | 08/28/2008 1:12 PM |
| using mdt 2008 update 1 I have reason to create my own ini file to store a group of settings for my deployment scenario... I customized the deployment wizard to gather the required input from the user and create the ini file. How do I persist this file from the deployment wizard stage (pre - harddrive partition and format / winPE) to the end of the deployment process when it will be used? I was hoping to make it part of whatever existing process is already used by MDT to do this with other files it uses like the logs and variables.dat etc...??? so far combing the scripts has not answered my questions... I know the answer is there but I haven't found it yet. I'm hoping someone here already knows? some ideas I have if I can't integrate my file into existing procesess: 1) just write to network share, store path to access file in an mdt property. This could work but there will be many simultaneous users so I would need to make sure filename or path and filename are unique per session, and then of course clean up after. 2) store entire contents of the ini file in an mdt property? don't know size limits? and write it to new file when time comes would rather not do either of these but rather integrate into how mdt already handles for it's files. anyone know? | | | |
| Konrad
Posts:67
| | 08/28/2008 6:02 PM |
| Can you put it on the PE partition, and then add a step to copy it over to your C: drive after the format step?
In regard to your two points:
For (1), you could always name the file using either the MAC address and/or the Task Sequence variable SERIALNUMBER.
For (2), I think you can store quite large values as I've noticed that MDT itself seems to store the contents of one of the xml files as a Task Sequence variable. | | | |
| David
Posts:50
| | 08/29/2008 9:16 AM |
| thanks for the reply Konrad, I appreciate it. when you say the 'PE partition' are you refering to the ram drive? If so, that was my first thought but I was thinking the partition and format command had a reboot tied to it which would happen before I had the opportunity to copy the file to it... but I have not tested to find out for sure.. so I guess it still could be that simple. and thanks for the input on the other 2 items, good to know. | | | |
| Konrad
Posts:67
| | 08/31/2008 6:25 PM |
| It is the ram drive that I mean, which should come up as the x: drive.
The format takes place in the Task Sequence at:
Preinstall > New Computer only > Format and Partition Disk
and quite a few things Task Sequence actions happen before the reboot, which is not until the end of the "Postinstall" section. You could put in a custom action within Postinstall, just somewhere before the "Restart computer" task. | | | |
| David
Posts:50
| | 09/03/2008 1:14 PM |
| thanks again. I found out I can't do it directly after the format and partition task because the later 'install operating system' task wipes it out. Since its applying a custom wim I didn't think it would do that. So I guess I need to do it right after the 'install operating system' task, at least thats the earliest I can do it. I need that 'sweet spot' that will hopefully work in a wide variaety of task sequences so I may instead change directions and put the whole contents of my ini file into a custom property. I'm going to test that out next. thanks again. | | | |
| FarmerPete
Posts:168
| | 09/04/2008 10:51 AM |
| | If you are going to put the data into task variables, why not just go all out and do it the right way, screw the ini file, and use nothing but variables for the data storage? Input the data directly into variables that you can then draw from during your install process directly, and if you need the data after the install, you can make a custom task that dumps the variables into an ini file. | | | |
| David
Posts:50
| | 09/04/2008 12:35 PM |
| because I won't know ahead of time how many variables I will need. I'm allowing any number of NICs to be configured.... I don't want to create a nic1IP, nic1SubnetMask, nic1Gateway, nic1etc... nic2x, nic3, nic4, etc... I have machines that will be deployed with up to 4 nics, maybe more. I was thinking using a file for the settings would be easier to deal with, plus ztiutility already has good functions for using ini files... however I did do a test and the process that stores the variables in variables.dat strips out the line breaks and such from the file which makes the ini file format no good for this. So I can still do it, but I will need to change file format to xml instead. I beleive mdt does this itself somehere, stores whole xml file in an mdt property. anyway, thats why. I think it will be easier to manage coding this way.... although I could be wrong  | | | |
| jbrixey
Posts:18
| | 09/08/2008 1:21 PM |
| | I would try doing a command line task AFTER the OS has installed and the task sequencer has started the State Restore phase, much like installing an application. As the PE environment can only configure the active network connection, you will not be able to configure multiple nics in the PE environment (at least not easily). Once you have a Windows installation running, Windows will see your multiple NICs (network connection 1, 2, 3, etc.) You can then write your script that the task sequence parses to assign the required IP addresses to the network interfaces. If you use a static IP address during the Welcome wizard (assuming you haven't configured your bootstrap.ini or customsettings.ini to skip it), you will have one less interface that needs to be configured by your script. This would also allow you to have a network file that could be a single file that any technician could access (say a csv file) that could have the necessary settings for any of your systems and their static ip configurations that your script could parse for configuration. | | | |
| David
Posts:50
| | 09/09/2008 1:00 PM |
| Thanks for the info jbrixey. I did not know that about winPE. My requirements are to gather *all* the deployment info up front at the begining and since the final IP's of the machines will be on different networks than the mdt/wds infrastructure I had planned on actually applying the settings as the last step. Actually, thats why I was looking into ways of persisting all that config info, so I could use it later. thanks again for the input. It is appreciated. | | | |
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