MDT PS Wizard Covers MS Deployment Toolkit Wizards
Anybody who’s worked the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) know that it’s all about the wizards. Lots of wizards (dozens, anyway), in fact. That’s what makes a new, free PowerShell script called MDT PS Wizard attractive. The MDT PS Wizard covers most of the MS deployment wizards under one umbrella. Yes, that’s right: it gathers the functionality of a majority of MDT wizards, including most of the popular ones, within a single GUI.
How MDT PS Wizard Covers MS Deployment Toolkit Wizards
This PS script basically grabs and organizes all of the MDT wizards under six different categories — namely:
1. Details
2. Domain/Workgroup
3. Network
4. Applications
5. Backup
6. Others
You’ll see these categories at the left of the following screen cap, where the words above map to the left-hand-side icons below in the following screen capture:
The preceding category names map to the icons at center left in this PS-based GUI environment.
[Click image to see full-sized view.]
This effort is the work of Damien Van Robaeys, a Francophone developer and administrator who runs a peachy website called www.systanddeploy.com represented as “Syst & Deploy” as the site cognomen. You’ll find the offering nicely covered in a blog post from Damien entitled “MDT PS Wizard: All MDT Wizards in one.” It’s got a nice video that shows how the GUI looks and works, along with a detailed set of installation instructions. Great stuff!
Hint: to really see what his videos and illustrations depict, I’d recommend maximizing them to run full-screen. Otherwise, it’s a little taxing on the eyes to really see what’s going on. This is a great piece of work, and one that puts a prettier face on MDT than the default wizards have to offer. For those who spend appreciable amounts of time working in or with MDT, this is definitely worth checking out. The Details, Domain, Network, Applications, and Backup items are especially interesting. Other is something of a grab-bag that includes references to a WSUS server, logging, and product key information for use within the MDT environment.