The biggest story in the OSD Community this year is the “retirement” of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). The writing had been on the wall for a while, and yet the removal caught many of us off guard and unprepared. I’ve been seeing lots of chatter about what happened to MDT on social media, as well as what’s next for OSDCloud and Recast Software. Here’s my personal perspective.
MDT had an impact on my journey
I’ve been focused on OSD since the Windows 95 days—deploying with media and answer files. There wasn’t much to it, and things were painfully slow with spinning disks. By the Windows 2000 era, I was cloning disks with Ghost. As long as I deployed identical hardware with matching images, life was good. To be honest, I’ve forgotten many of those early deployment details. Things didn’t truly click until I discovered BDD, which eventually became MDT.
At the time, I was working for an Oil Services Enterprise maintaining our standard image. While most users were in the office, many were remote in the field—on ships, oil platforms, and in shipping containers converted to offices. These sites had satellite connectivity or none at all. I spent several months in Africa and the Middle East setting up new sites and deploying desktops and servers, all with MDT. It just worked.
When I’d learned as much as I could about MDT and OSD on my own, I knew it was time to level up. In 2011, I signed up for Geek Week, hosted by Johan Arwidmark and Mikael Nyström, at the Microsoft Redmond campus. The experience was incredible, and I learned from the Legends about everything OSD, especially MDT. What ended up being the highlight of my week was meeting the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit team, and with MDT’s creator, Michael Niehaus.
The knowledge I gained from this single week has defined the last several years of my career and brought me a new goal of sharing my OSD contributions with the Community.
OSD has always evolved
Over the years, the OSD process has always kept up with the challenges of a changing industry:
- Manual Builds – We started with hands-on builds using Windows Setup with answer files
- Cloning – Allowed us to deploy at scale
- Task Sequencing – MDT and SCCM moved us to controlled, repeatable deployments
- Cloud & Modern Management – Intune with Autopilot brought zero-touch provisioning
So, while MDT being retired, phased out, 404’d, unsupported, is a blow to the OSD Community, it is not anything we should fear. There have always been an incredible number of people in the Community working every day to solve OSD challenges, and this is no different.
Follow the Community
All the Legends of OSD that were in the community a decade ago are still here. Johan Arwidmark has always been available to anyone willing to learn, including his weekly webcasts at the ViaMonstra Online Academy. Most everyone else, including Michael Niehaus is now at 2Pint Software , which just had a timely release of DeployR. He’s joined by a fantastic team of Community All Stars (Gary Blok, Mike Terrill, Brian Mason, Andreas Hammarskjöld, and Mattias Benninge). Finally, Keith Garner from the MDT Team is starting Deployment Live (more to come, I’m sure).
What’s next (OSDCloud)
At Recast Software, my number one priority is to focus on improving OSDCloud and OSD Tools for the Community, while bringing new features and support for our enterprise customers. I’ll be sharing some of these changes (including MDT to OSDCloud) at the webinar series Community Tools for Intune from MVPs Around the Globe. I’m here to answer your OSD questions and listen to your concerns and feedback.
David Segura @ Recast Software
Microsoft MVP and Community Contributor
