What's new with SMS 2003 Operating System Deployment Feature Pack Update
Companies that want to deploy the latest operating systems and applications are often burdened with the work of supporting distribution across the company. The Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 Operating System Deployment Feature Pack enhances SMS by providing a customizable, centralized, and scalable way to create and deploy Windows operating system images.
The following capabilities are provided by the Operating System Deployment (OSD) Feature Pack Update:
| • | Image capture management: Steps administrators through the process of capturing an image of a reference computer in the new Microsoft Windows Imaging (WIM) format. |
| • | OS package management: Customizes and manages the settings for individual deployments, including notifications, distribution settings, and network settings. |
| • | User state migration: Integrates with the User State Migration Tool 2.6.1 and 3.0 to preserve user profiles when installing new OSes. |
| • | Image deployment: Deploys OS images using the highly customizable task-based SMS 2003 infrastructure. |
| • | Reporting: Reports on specific deployments to help troubleshoot and demonstrate deployment success. |
System Requirements
The OSD Feature Pack requires SMS 2003 Service Pack 2 or above. To use the user state migration features of the OS Deployment Feature Pack, download the Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) 2.6.1 or USMT 3.0 as appropriate. For more information about USMT, see the USMT documentation.