Vista Deployment Screencast

The latest screencast insallment is on Vista deployment; to give it the proper name - Business Desktop Deployment (BDD).  So what's behind the acronym?  Well, BDD provides one solution with which businesses can plan, build and deploy Windows Vista to their user's machines.  The deployment techniques used in Vista are drastically different from those used in XP and they are much better for it.  IT admins need to understand what the advantages of the new deployment tools are, and also how to use them.

The screencast shows of the BDD Workbench, which is the central place where you can manage all your deployments.  It's very easy to use and once you understand all terminologies and ways in which to work you can very quickly setup a suite of images ready to deploy to different parts of your organisation depending on role.

I highlight the distribution share which is a server share that acts as the primary location for all the source files that a deployment is based on; Vista Images, Applications to install with the OS, Packages (Service Packs, Language Packs etc), and non-standard device drivers.  It's like a deployment repository from which you can pick and choose the components for you build.

There's also something in BDD called the Task Sequencer.  This allows complete customisation of the installation steps throughout a deployment and includes great flexibility by using state trees (if statements) to action different items depending on circumstance.

So when you are ready to go and deploy your builds, you can also specify how you want to go and do this, either by deployment share, removable media (DVD, USB Flash) or incorporate it in your SMS 2003 deployment program.

I also touch a little on Windows Image Manager, a tool that allows complete customisation of what goes into an image, so you can specify exactly the settings Vista has.  This tool has so much to cover that I'll be doing a seperate screencast so stay tuned!

Video: Vista Deployment Screencast

Download the screencast here: Vista Deployment Screencast (11.7MB WMV)

Technorati tags: Vista, Screencast, Deployment