Windows Deployment Server is free with normal server licenses.
It can PXE boot, load in all sorts of drivers and is really smart. I prefer it to SCCMs version. There is a book on how to set it up, I can’t recall the name of it right.m now, buts its step by step and is baller.
You don’t want to do a golden image that is sysprepped and then layed onto new machines. You are asking for trouble imo. Plus make new images takes forever and is really more dependamt. With WDS your golden image can be applied to any make model and can be confided to installs something (or not) depending on make model or if it’s a laptop/desktop.
If you have a ton of Lenovo in house, it gets ‘slightly’ trickier with the way they store the more info in the bios/wmic. But they cover that in the book.
Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Microsoft/dp/9187445212/ref=nodl_
That Mykael Nystrom really really knows his shit.
I agree. If you plan on deep diving into mdt I recommend checking out the books from the deployment guys https://www.amazon.com/dp/9187445212/ref=cm_sw_su_dp I read one of the older books. Very straight forward reading that gives you some best practices when building in mdt.
Also if you are searching the internet for how to do x in mdt it sometimes help to change your search to how to do x in sccm which is like mdts older cousin. Won't give you exact steps you would do in mdt but will often give you the outline of how to tackle a problem that is easily translated to mdt.
This book helped me a lot when I began using MDT: https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Microsoft/dp/9187445212/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1587931453&sr=1-4
Keep testing everything and don't let mistakes put you down. I'm still learning something new every week.
https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Microsoft/dp/9187445212
ThriftBooks should also have it.
Totally this. Huge fan of MDT. I set up two deployment shares, the build and deploy. If you want deployments to go fast, set up fat/hybrid deployments. I highly recommend a book: https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Microsoft/dp/9187445212
​
And if you're paying out of pocket, this book here will get you going just fine: https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Windows/dp/9197939080
​
Tips and tricks can be learned online with a quick google.
No one does it better than Johan Arwidmark:
https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Microsoft/dp/9187445212
Yes, this is what i used. Excellent stuff. This guy also has a really great series of videos on microsoft Channel 9: https://channel9.msdn.com/Search?term=Johan%20Arwidmark#pubDate=all&ch9Search&lang-en=en
He also literally wrote the book on MDT Windows 10 deployment: https://www.amazon.com/dp/9187445212/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
Great place to start: Deployment Fundamentals, Vol. 6: Deploying Windows 10 Using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Microsoft/dp/9187445212 Edit: removed shortened URL