‘Is that a time machine? It looks like a time machine!’
I momentarily thought I was in the movie Pursuit of Happyness, but the man asking me the question was just making a joke. I was standing at the gate waiting to board my plane in Houston, and the man was referring to the cube PC with the translucent sides that I travel with for my user group presentation on Simplified Desktop Deployment. He was not the first person to ask me about it by a long shot.
The more that I think of it the more I think that maybe the gentleman was not entirely wrong. It is truly a state-of-the-art machine, running the newest operating systems (and a couple that will not be released for some time), and I use it to demonstrate what I suspect will be the future of OS and application deployment for small and medium businesses.
Okay, maybe it is a stretch to say that it is a time machine, but I hope that the information I present with it will bring many small businesses and small business consultants out of the age of installing machines individually to the era of centrally managed deployment.
Whereas previous deployment strategies were either unfriendly, incomplete, and difficult to manage or complicated, advanced, and impossible to implement without expensive training and infrastructure, the newly designed efficient architecture of Windows Vista opened the door to a simplified deployment strategy that is easy to understand, simple to implement and maintain, and a true opportunity for small businesses to take another giant step towards their larger competitors without spending a lot of money.
The three tools that I focus on in my presentation are the BDD Workbench, the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) for Vista, and the new Windows Deployment Services which was introduced into Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003. The first two are available for download at www.microsoft.com/desktopdeployment.
The BDD Workbench is the image foundry where we manage our operating systems, applications, patches, third-party drivers, builds, and deployment points. The new BDD 2007 offers vast improvements over its predecessor BDD 2.5. BDD Workbench is now an MMC console which is an improvement over the old HTA application which required an IIS Server and did not offer the same responsiveness.
The Windows AIK is not only required to run BDD, it also includes a number of updates that you should install before proceeding, partially explaining the 1GB download. When you start up the AIK Setup you can install the .NET Framework 2.0 as well as the MSXML 6.0. Once those are installed you can install the AIK which will help you to customize your build.
Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is a vast improvement over its predecessor. It is more adaptive, offers better control, and is easier to use than the old Remote Installation Services. Though it is not required for a BDD deployment, it does allow us to advertise the Windows PE build which BDD launches to deploy the OS without having to burn a bootable CD.
If it still sounds complicated my next article will take us through the process step-by-step so that we can build our deployment builds without fuss, muss, or headaches, including applications, patches, and out-of-box drivers. Stay tuned for that coming up soon.
If you are more visual then check my schedule for my Simplified Desktop Deployment presentation. If I am not scheduled to speak in your city then contact your local user group leader or Microsoft partner rep and tell them you want to see me there soon!