MDT: Applications fail to deploy on new machines

Taylor Crowley 1 Reputation point
2023-10-25T10:21:35.39+00:00

Hello all,

I've been having this issue with my MDT image deployment whereby when an image is deployed to a brand new machine, it always fails to deploy applications with a '1603' MSI error message. Along with this, the deployment gets stuck on the sign-in page trying to access the local admin account '.\Administrator.

If I then try and deploy again to the same machine it goes through seamlessly and uses our domain local admin which is pushed to all machines via GPO. This time it installs all apps with no problem.

What's the distinction between deploying an image to a machine that's brand new and one that has had a previous attempt at imaging? And why does it successfully use the right admin account the second time?

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
A collection of Microsoft tools and documentation for automating desktop and server deployment. Previously known as Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD).
859 questions
0 comments No comments
{count} votes

1 answer

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. AllenLiu-MSFT 43,061 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2023-10-26T02:44:11.1566667+00:00

    Hi, @Taylor Crowley

    Thank you for posting in Microsoft Q&A forum.

    The issue you are facing with MDT image deployment failing to deploy applications with a '1603' MSI error message on a brand new machine could be due to the fact that the local admin account is not enabled or the password is not set correctly.

    The deployment gets stuck on the sign-in page trying to access the local admin account '.\Administrator because the account is not enabled or the password is incorrect.

    When you try to deploy again to the same machine, it uses your domain local admin which is pushed to all machines via GPO. This time it installs all apps with no problem because the domain local admin account is used instead of the local admin account.

    To resolve this issue, you can try enabling the local admin account and setting the password correctly before deploying the image to a new machine. Alternatively, you can create a new local admin account with a different name and password and use that account for the deployment.


    If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Add comment".

    0 comments No comments