1. Discovering Selection Profiles
Selection profiles are part of the advanced
configuration within the Deployment Workbench. Selection profiles allow
you to make a selection of folders present in the Deployment Workbench.
You can later use this profile during the creation of linked deployment
shares so you can specify which content will be replicated to that
linked deployment share. You can also use selection profiles while
including the proper device drivers and packages for use within Windows
Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE), which helps you define
specific Windows PE images for specific configurations. Finally, you can
use selection profiles within the task sequence and when creating
deployment media.
By default, the selection profiles in Table 1 are available.
Table 1. Default selection profiles
| Name | Description |
|---|
| Everything | All folders are selected. |
| All Drivers | All driver folders are selected. |
| All Drivers And Packages | All driver and packages folders are selected. |
| All Packages | All packages are selected. |
| Nothing | Nothing is selected. |
| Sample | Used as an example; packages and task sequences are selected. |
In addition to the default selection profiles, you
can create your own, which you can use in your custom deployment
solution. Here are the steps you should follow:
Start the Deployment Workbench and browse to Deployment Shares => <your deployment share name> => Advanced Configuration => Selection Profiles.
Click New Selection Profile in the Actions pane.
In
the New Selections Profile wizard on the General Settings page, provide
a selection profile name and (optionally) some comments so that you can
determine later why you created the profile. Click Next to continue.
On
the Folders page, select the folders you want to include in your
selection profile. As you can see, all the folders and subfolders from
your deployment share are available for selection. Choose the
appropriate folder by placing a check mark in front of the folder name.
Click Next to continue.
On
the Summary page, review the details provided and click Next to execute
the creation of the selection profile. You can follow the creation
progress on the Progress page.
After
the selection profile is created, verify that the outcome is "The
process completed successfully." You can also save the status presented
on the screen to a log file by selecting Save Output and providing a
name to save the output to. Also notice that you can view the PowerShell
script that was used to create the selection profile by selecting View
Script. You can later use this script as a basis to create selection
profiles automatically.
Click Finish to end the wizard, and verify that you see your new selection profile listed in the workbench.
|
Selection profiles can help you distinguish between
different types of operating systems and their related dependencies,
such as drivers. If you group your Windows 7 drivers in a selection
profile, you can later use that profile in your task sequence when
injecting drivers. Selection profiles can also be used to ensure that
only the necessary drivers—the network drivers and the mass storage
adapter drivers—are injected into your boot image. You can create a
selection profile containing only these drivers and use that profile
while creating the boot image.
|
After you have created a selection profile, you can
change its settings by right-clicking on the profile and selecting
Properties. You can then modify the included folders in the selection
profile, rename the selection profile, or add additional comments.
You also have the ability to copy selection profiles
to other linked deployment shares. However, copying selection profiles
within their own folder doesn't work at this time.
2. Creating a Linked Deployment Share
By using several linked deployment shares, you can
create a scalable deployment solution by placing these linked deployment
shares in the neighborhood of the clients you are going to deploy.
2.1. Understanding Linked Deployment Shares
By using linked deployment shares, you can
synchronize content from a source deployment share to a target
deployment share. Using selection profiles allows you to create
deployment shares servicing certain scenarios. You can, for example,
create a deployment share only suitable for installing servers within
your organization and place that deployment share in your server VLAN.
By using Distributed File System Replication (DFS-R),
you can replicate the contents of equally configured linked deployment
shares automatically. If you also replicate the contents of the MDT
database, you are able to build a highly scalable deployment solution.
The target deployment share server doesn't need to
have the WAIK and MDT installed. It will just host a file share
containing the necessary files. WDS is needed, though, if you want this
server to perform PXE boot services to its clients.
On
the server where you want to create the target deployment share, create
a folder and share it with the share name you prefer. Also make sure
that the share is accessible by the source deployment server by
providing correct share and NTFS permissions.
Start the Deployment Workbench and browse to Deployment Shares => <your deployment share name> => Advanced Configuration => Linked Deployment Shares.
Select New Linked Deployment Share from the Actions pane on the right; the New Linked Deployment Share wizard will start.
On
the General page, provide the UNC path to the share you just created on
the target server. You can optionally provide comments explaining the
purpose of the linked deployment share you are about to create.
By
default, the Everything selection profile is selected, but you can
modify this when necessary so that only a subset of the source
deployment share is copied to the target deployment share.
Specify
whether you want the New Linked Deployment Share wizard to either merge
or replace the selected content into the target deployment share. Click
Next.
On the Summary page, review the settings and click Next to create the relationship.
Verify on the Confirmation page that the process completed successfully.
Click
Finish to end the New Linked Deployment Share wizard, and verify that
the new linked replication share is listed in the workbench.
You also have the ability to save the status
presented on the screen to a log file by selecting Save Output and
providing a name to save the output to. Also notice that you can view
the PowerShell script that was used to create the linked deployment
share by selecting View Script. You can later use this script as a basis
to create linked deployment shares automatically.
Linked deployment shares in combination with
selection profiles can help you distinguish between your MDT test
environment and the MDT environment that you want to make available for
mass deployment. If you receive a new hardware device, you can test the
driver installation in your MDT test environment and later include the
drivers and applications in your MDT production selection profile. You
can use this selection profile to fill the linked deployment share that
you use for production deployment.
