To start a MDT 2010 Lite Touch installation remotely, e.g. without having to visit the machine, you can use the psexec tool (Microsoft / Sysinternals).
In my sample the remote PC is named PC0004 and my deployment server is MDT01. The deployment share is MDTProduction$ and the user account I use for my installations is TSLAB\BuildAccount. That account has administrator rights on the PC0004 machine.
- On MDT01, configure the rules (bootstrap.ini and customsettings.ini) on the deploymentshare so that the refresh installation process is fully automated. Below you find a fully automated sample rule set.
Bootstrap.ini
[Settings] Priority=Default
[Default] SkipBDDWelcome=YES
DeployRoot=\\MDT01\MDTProduction$
TaskSequenceID=W7-X86-002
UserDomain=TSLAB
UserID=BuildAccount
UserPassword=P@ssw0rd
Customsettings.ini
[Settings] Priority=Default
[Default] _SMSTSORGNAME=TSLAB
OSInstall=Y
DeploymentType=REFRESH
SkipDeploymentType=YES
SkipAdminPassword=YES
SkipProductKey=YES
SkipComputerName=YES
SkipDomainMembership=YES
SkipUserData=YES
UserDataLocation=AUTO
SkipLocaleSelection=YES
SkipTaskSequence=YES
SkipTimeZone=YES
SkipApplications=YES
SkipBitLocker=YES
SkipSummary=YES
SkipBDDWelcome=YES
SkipComputerBackup=YES
ComputerBackupLocation=NONE
SkipCapture=YES
SkipFinalSummary=YES
TimeZone=004
TimeZoneName=Pacific Standard Time
JoinDomain=TSLAB
DomainAdmin=TSLAB\JoinAccount
DomainAdminPassword=P@ssw0rd
MachineObjectOU=ou=Workstations,dc=tslab,dc=net
WSUSServer=http://MDT01
- Make sure the account used has administrator rights on PC0004. Can be achieved in many ways, I normally use Group Policy and the restricted groups feature to remotely add members to the administrators group on the clients.
- If the firewall is enabled on PC0004, make sure that the File and Printer Sharing exception is allowed. I use Group Policy for that too.
- On MTD01, download the PSTools package from Microsoft, extract it, and copy psexec.exe to C:\Windows\System32.
- On MDT01, in a command prompt (or via a batchfile), execute psexec.exe \\PC0004 -u TSLAB\BuildAccount -p P@ssw0rd cscript.exe \\MDT01\MDTProduction$\Scripts\litetouch.vbs
/ Johan