We are looking into the different methods of deploying Windows 7 to a large client base. Currently we can see two options as follows: 1) Creating task sequence media containing the wim image and applications we require and then having to manually boot each PC, in excess of 5000 with the disk so the OS installs. 2) Importing the computers MAC address / GUID into SCCM, enabling a PXE service point and using SCCM to deploy the OS and applications by PXE booing the PC's. Are these the only 2 potential methods? Either way seems that we cannot fully automate the process as we would be upgrading from XP and need to set boot options for CD or PXE on 5000+ clients. We do have all clients in the SCCM database, but would want to retain their network configuration (IP address etc) and computer name as part of the migration to Windows 7. Thanks in advance.

if you want to retain the data from XP and migrate that to Windows 7 you should start the TS from within Windows. If you do not care about the data you can do this: http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/maikkoster/archive/2010/01/13/using-a-custom-boot-wizard-to-boot-known-and-unknown-computers-in-sccm-and-choose-a-task-sequence-to-run-step-by-step.aspx John Marcum | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jmarcum/|

Hi John, How would we start the TS from within windows and then proceed to do complete an OSD?

This is a built-in feature of OSD in ConfigMgr. Simply advertising a TS to an existing system will enable that TS to run just like Soft Dist. Any tasks, like capturing user state or system info (like IP address), placed before the initial reboot into PE in the TS will run in the existing OS. The TS engine will then copy the boot image locally and reboot the system into the boot image and continue the TS -- since this is booting to the local hard drive no boot options need to be changed. You can also use unknown computer support instead of importing any unknown systems into ConfigMgr although this doesn't sound like your primary challenge. Note that you don't actually have to change boot options and its usually a bad idea to do so anyway -- all hardware I've ever worked on enable a boot menu where you can select the desired boot device. Changing the boot option to something other than the local drive is inviting trouble. Jason | http://blog.configmgrftw.com | Twitter @JasonSandys

Please be aware of the "fire me" button, AKA creating a mandatory advertisement of an OSD task sequence to a collection of production systems. The computers will forcibly shut down and begin the imaging process, likely losing data. Please exercise caution: make sure your advertisements are voluntary until you are comfortable with what you are doing, and create a collection plainly label "OSD" so it is obvious what will happen if you add computers to it.Nicholas Jones, MCITP | Core Infrastructure Consultant | Sparkhound | https://www.mcpvirtualbusinesscard.com/VBCServer/nicholas.jones/profile

Thanks all for the responses - much appreciated. Sounds like just what we need. Regards