Introduction

Operating System Deployment (OSD) in CM12 is a key feature of the product. Many admins report that their primary reason for implementing CM was just to leverage OSD, and frankly, we can't blame them. The Task Sequence (TS), which the CM uses to drive the OSD process, is very flexible and powerful, as you will learn in this chapter.

OSD is easily the single biggest feature in CM. Entire books and careers are built around it. Our aim in this chapter is just to get the reader started with the basics; the art and finesse will come with time.

While the title of this chapter mentions Windows 7, all recipes should apply equally to Windows 8 (or Server 2008/R2/2012). Because there are some special issues around mass storage devices with Windows XP and because XP is nearing end of life, we will omit XP imaging in this chapter. Mass storage challenges are present with both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.