Why is there no MDT Support for Windows 11?

Question

Curious to know why Microsoft has decided to not support Windows 11 with MDT? I know of many organizations that leverage MDT for their offline (isolated/closed network) environments. Especially with Long Term Servicing Channel version of Windows. Is there official guidance for a replacement for this product moving forward? I know the focus is cloud but what about those organizations that are not in the cloud and closed to the internet?

Answer 1

Microsoft Configuration Manager/Intune is VERY expensive and does not support shared systems.

Answer 2

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Q&A forum.

1,Per the official document, MDT does not support deployment of Windows 11. Microsoft recommends using alternative deployment solutions such as Microsoft Configuration Manager (MECM) as it is more flexible and provide a richer experience for deploying Windows images.

Refer to:

MDT Supported platforms

Support for Windows 11 in Configuration Manager

2,Microsoft also suggests alternative solutions for endpoint management for those that cannot yet use a cloud-only management approach. These include deploying Configuration Manager clients over the internet using a cloud management gateway (CMG), attaching your existing Configuration Management estate to the cloud with tenant attach, or using co-management to manage devices concurrently using both Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune.

Refer to:

Cloud management gateway overview

Thanks for your time. Have a nice day!

Best regards,

Simon

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Answer 3

Dear Eric

Please feel free to contact me. While MDT does officially not support Windows 11 we do use MDT to deploy Windows 10/11 and Servers 2012/2016/2019 within the same Tasksequence.

I do not care if Microsoft does support it - as I know how to deal with.

We even install our clients via a small self-updating USB pen drive over Wireless LAN as most of the new models do not have any LAN Ports built in.

After the OS installation we install the SW deployment agent like ManageOne, OPSI or SCCM to handover the further installation of software packages.

The client will end up in an on Premise AD or if you prefer in the Login Screen for Azure AD Join - selectable via Menu.

Did even integrate VNC-Agent do give Support during the installation.

Kind regards

Stefan

Answer 4

Dear Darren

You "just" need to replace the Wim image which is used to create the boot wim file with the one from winre which can be found install the install.wim

Regarding VNC integration. In unattend.xml you need to add an additional line:

                <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
                    <Description>Lite Touch PE</Description>
                    <Order>1</Order>
                    <Path>cmd.exe /c X:\Deploy\Tools\VNC\install.cmd</Path>
                </RunSynchronousCommand>

And of course you need to add this additional files to you boot file - additional files can be added in the properties of your MDT.

install.cmd should look like this

@echo off
%WINDIR%\System32\wpeutil.exe DisableFirewall
mkdir %SystemDrive%\VNC
%windir%\regedit.exe -s "%~dp0Settings.reg"
xcopy %~dp0*.* %SystemDrive%\VNC /cherky
%SYSTEMDRIVE%\VNC\tvnserver.exe -install -silent
%SYSTEMDRIVE%\VNC\tvnserver.exe -start -silent

Content of the VNC folder

The Settings.reg does have all settings for the VNC agent - you need to export it after installation and set all settings on an demo client, including the password.

That's it - more or less...

Kind regards

Stefan

Answer 5

Hi,

Hope everything goes well. Do you need any further assistance about this issue? If yes, please feel free to let us know, we will do our best to help you.

If the response is helpful, it's appreciated that you could click "Accept Answer" and upvote it, this will help other users to search for useful information more quickly.

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,

Simon