Using the task sequecence default environment variables

This week, continuing the work I’ve been developing with the Windows VIsta deployment, I got myself into a problem that I didn’t have an idea of how to resolve it.

I needed to copy some files specific of the task sequence I was running, and I wanted that to be exact same command for all task sequences.

For a instance, imagine you need to copy the files and folders located on Z:\Control01\TS_Specifc\*.*
001 corresponds to the task sequence ID and that is a variable used by the MDT process.

To get that ID you’ll use the environment variable %TASKSEQUENCEID%

So, my command-line (that I had to my task sequece) and can be used for all task sequences will be:
xcopy Z:\Control\%TASKSEQUENCEID%\TS_Specific\*.* /E C:\folder

With this, you have a command-line to use with all task sequences and also you can change the build id with problems.

Other usefull environment variable you can use is %TASKSEQUENCENAME% that, like it’s said, makes it possible to get the Name of the task sequence you’ve created on the MDT Workbench.

Just be carefull if the Name as more then word (ex.: Branch Desktops), because in this cases you’ll need to use the variable like this:
"%TASKSEQUENCENAME%"

For a complete list of the default variables created by MDT you can go, during the installation process to:
C:\MININT\SMSOSD\OSDLOGS and take a look at the file variables.dat. You can use notepad to look at it or rename it to .xml and see it on Internet Explorer

ZTI ERROR – Unhandled error returned by ZTIPatches: Object required (424)

Ok…

This is a very strange behavior that I need to take a deep investigation because I really can’t understand it.

I’ve been using the same unattend.xml file for testing purposes for a long time, but…this weekend I’ve haded some hotfixes to the OS Packages section, via the MDT Workbench.

After updating my Deployment Point, I’ve started the installation and almost immediately after starting the deploy, I got an error called:

<code>ZTI ERROR – Unhandled error returned by ZTIPatches: Object required (424)</code>

Because the only thing I’ve done was the insertion of hotfixes I’ve took them all except one. The error persisted! A very strange thing…

Looking closer to the bdd.log, located on C:\Minint\SMSOSD\OSDLOGS\, I’ve noticed an error with something like:

<code>Invalid character (…)</code>

I’ve googled it a little and someone was having a similar problem because of the use of a Norwegian character. After a search on my unattend I’ve realized I was using the name of the enterprise where I work, with a special character:
Espírito instead of Espirito.

After updated my deployment point…here we go again…everything works fine!

The really strange thing here it’s…why the hll does this just happened after adding hotfixes?