SmartDeploySupport

Jonathan, We have received your logs when you contacted support and are reviewing them now. I'll be reaching out shortly. Thanks, Devon SmartDeploy Support

Hello DeJeon, Welcome to the SmartDeploy community! Currently, you cannot choose your installation directory for both the SmartDeploy installation and the SmartDeploy client. You can however change where your SmartDeploy directory is stored via Settings in the SmartDeploy console. This is where all your virtual machines, images, etc will be stored in case you're lacking space on your C:\ drive. Hope that helps, Devon SmartDeploy Support

Hi Chris, This is pretty common behavior in WindowsPE - the drive letters can be a bit unusual while Windows is getting installed due to the variable order in which system devices can initialize, and this can vary by computer model, so it's equally unsurprising that C:\ has worked on some models but not on this one. Luckily, it's an issue we have to deal with at deployment time as well, so we create two drive letters specifically for our use in the PE environment, and you're welcome to reference them in Tasks or scripts in PE for your purposes as well. T:\ refers to the primary OS partition on Disk 0, which will eventually (after reboot) become C:\. S:\ refers to the system reserve partition, which you likely won't have to interact with in any way; just mentioning it here for reference. So replacing C:\ with T:\ in your existing task to copy from a location on %SmartDeploy_Media% should work just fine. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or issues - support@smartdeploy.com. Glenn SmartDeploy Support

It's the same for all new Dell's really. The machine needs to be in it's default settings. UEFI only, Legacy disabled, SecureBoot On. Then on the F12 screen you need to ensure you make a UEFI boot selection, and not a Legacy selection. Once booted to SmartDeploy the lower right-hand corner has to say UEFI and not BIOS.

Hello, We will need to take a look at some deployment logs in order to see what caused this. Please boot to SmartDeploy media on the affected device click the Collect logs option, save the resulting zip file to an external location. Submit your logs here and please reference this forum post. Thanks, Devon SmartDeploy Support

Kamosobe, Can you restart the console service on the console host first, and then the client?

Hi Kamsobe, Please go ahead and disable any antivirus software you have installed and try again. We've seen it cause issues with our services. You can also whitelist download.smartdeploy.com

Hello Kamsobe, After clicking the 'Prefer Cloud Connection' option, can you confirm that the connection type changes to Cloud in the console? Here is our KB for cloud push deployment in case something may have been missed in this process. Performing a Cloud Push Deployment

Hello, Yes, this is possible. It involves running the Office deployment tool, the procedure for which varies a bit by the Office version (and also whether it's Click-to-Run/C2R or MSI). The basic procedure is running a Microsoft tool to bake your configuration instructions into an XML or MSP file and putting it alongside the installation files (and - if it's C2R, downloading the installation files offline). The key things you'll want to include are - an Office product key if needed (unless you're using O365), setting the Display Level to None, and accepting the EULA. Once you've done this, you can package it all up in an application pack, and call the setup.exe file as you would for any other application - as long as the XML or MSP is in the appropriate location, it will run with your options configured. Each of the Office versions has a "deployment guide" or similar available from Microsoft, so take a look for that for your version of Office, and it should have what you need. If you get stuck or have any questions or issues, feel free to reach out- support@smartdeploy.com. Glenn SmartDeploy Support

Hello, We would need to take a look at some deployment logs. Please submit a ticket here and refer to this thread. Please boot to SmartDeploy media on the affected device (ideally with USB boot media with no answer file, to avoid starting another deployment and wiping the previous logs), click the Collect logs option, save the resulting zip file to an external location, and send it to us. Thanks, Devon SmartDeploy Support

Hi Mo, You could keep right on using USB boot media for this - as soon as the device successfully boots to WindowsPE, the USB stick can be unplugged and you can boot the next computer. With a handful of USB sticks and technicians, it would not take long to get them all started. For 25+ computers deploying simultaneously, we would recommend setting up a solution that supports multicasting - this would either be the SmartDeploy client as you mentioned, or PXE boot via Windows Deployment Services (WDS). For brand new computers, we recommend USB or PXE boot media, because it avoids exactly the scenario you alluded to above - manually powering on each computer, creating a user, installing the client, etc. By booting directly to an external device, you don't have to mess with the preinstalled OEM OS (this would also work if the new device doesn't have any OS whatsoever installed). Multicasting has specific network requirements that you may need to configure on your network, so it's up to you if you think that's worth the trouble - if this lab of 55 computers is a one-off or infrequent need, then it may not be - you could just perform it in multiple batches, with fewer than 25 computers deploying at one time. In any case, you can contact us if you have any questions or issues (including if you want some best practices for setting up your network for multicasting). Some resources you may find useful: SmartDeploy/WDS integration guide Installing the SmartDeploy Client - see P. 47 of the User's Guide. You can reach us at support@smartdeploy.com. Glenn SmartDeploy Support

Hi vlee14, If I understand correctly, you're looking for a real-time status indicator on the console? This is a bit tricky to engineer, since the USMT Scanstate and Loadstate processes are essentially just copying files per-user profile, but they don't output any sort of overall percentage that we could capture and provide as feedback within the UI. We can detect when it starts, and detect when it completes - and that information is reflected via that icon in the console. That said, if you have any feedback about this aspect of the UI, please feel free to submit it - we're always looking to improve the usability of the product, and we appreciate all user feedback. You can send this to feedback (at) smartdeploy.com. Glenn SmartDeploy Support

Hi Chaynie, For this request, please go ahead and submit this to support@smartdeploy.com. Thanks, Chris SmartDeploy Support

Hello, Yes, our plan is to update them periodically or by customer request. Thanks, Devon SmartDeploy Support

Hi Nagaraj, This is a difficult scenario, since using SmartDeploy requires local administrator privileges, which would generally also grant these users access to both the WDS console and any virtualization platform that you're using. If this is a major security concern, I would recommend installing SmartDeploy on a different server. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to support@smartdeploy.com. Glenn SmartDeploy Support

Hello Joedarkness, Thanks for reaching out to us. Smartdeploy is definitely a great fit for you in this scenario. We will contact you soon via email and get you started with a trial.

Hi MNATC, The easiest way to do this would be with two separate boot images - each with an unattended answer file that points to each image. Add both boot images to WDS with friendly names that indicate which OS image they point to, e.g. Win 10 Base Image (Unattended) and Win 10 Engineering Image (Unattended). You can even do additional Attended versions of these answer files and boot images if you find that useful. Then your technician PXE boots the device, and simply selects the appropriate boot image from the WDS boot menu, and the deployment will proceed. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or issues. Glenn SmartDeploy Support support@smartdeploy.com

Shane, Please send us your C:\SmartDeploy\Logs\Console.log from the SmartDeploy host here and refer to this post and I'll take a look. Thanks, Devon SmartDeploy Support

Hi Ted, Just to clarify something on differencing images, a differencing image (.dwm file) is mostly intended for a use case of having to support branch offices with limited connectivity, as it allows you to save a smaller .dwm file that only contains the changes that were made to the VM since a previous .wim was captured. This would allow you to not have to upload a large, multi-GB .wim file to another office every time you update your image. You can certainly use differencing .wims each time you update instead, but there’s not much of an advantage over just capturing a new .wim file for the use case you described below, unless you need to transfer the image to another location. If you are using differencing wims, you will want the original .WIM in the same locations as the .dwm and then point to the .dwm when creating your answer file. Also, SmartDeploy technically does not support 1903 yet, so if you run into issues we would have to say recreate your VM with a 1809 ISO. We should have full support of 1903 soon. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support Devon

Howard, Sorry to hear you're still having issues. Yes, please submit a ticket here. Reference this thread and we will get this resolved. Thanks, Devon SmartDeploy Support

According to the log the Media Wizard is crashing while reading your image. C:\SmartDeploy\Images\Win7AdminNVMe.wim Have you used this image before?

Hi there, Sure thing - reaching out via email now. Glenn SmartDeploy Support

Hi vlee14, Please refer to this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/ethernet-adapters-and-surface-device-deployment Based on this, your dock and dongle should work. You won't need to disable SecureBoot.

Hi vlee13, I found that with using PXE boot, you still need to enable the "Enable boot from USB devices" option in the boot options list. Did you by chance do that?

Aaron, Glad it works in your case. This issue doesn't occur with all imported WDS images, but we have seen it come up quite a bit.