Running Out of update….?? Its Time to Upgrade your Operating System to Windows 10 1909 Upgrade. Let’s learn how to create an upgrade Windows 10 Task Sequence.
There are various Windows 10 deployment scenarios available to install latest version of Windows 10 1909. To successfully deploy the latest operating system and choosing among those options, Its important to understand the capabilities and limitations. In this post I will explain you to use the Modern deployment methods (In-Place Upgarde), this is supported with existing deployment tools such as Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM).
In-place upgrade, which provides a simple, automated process that leverages the Windows setup process to automatically upgrade from an earlier version of Windows. This process automatically migrates existing data, settings, drivers, and applications.
Microsoft has built in extremely robust fallback options, if something goes wrong, the In-place Upgrade can easily reverting the Windows Update to the previous version by going back to an earlier build.The process can be automated and handled remotely with deployment tools.
Prerequisites – Windows 10 1909 Upgrade
Create Windows 10 operating system upgrade package from the latest windows 10. Check the Windows 10 – Release Information
Make sure that your device has enough space. Your device requires at least 16 GB of free disk space to upgrade a 32-bit OS, or 20 GB for a 64-bit OS
Supported Deployment Tools –
You will required to use Configuration Manager 1906 or 1910 for Windows 10 1909 upgrade.
It is always recommended to use the latest available version for experiencing best features.
Learn about the supported Windows 10 versions for Configuration Manager, Check Microsoft Blog.
Windows 10 Upgrade Process – Overview
The upgrade process consists of four phases- Downlevel, SafeOS, First boot and Second boot.The computer will reboot once between each phase.
What are the upgrade paths available?
You can perform upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or a later operating system. Migrating from one edition of Windows 10 to a different edition of the same release is also supported. Summary of available upgrade path in Microsoft Blog.
Note – In-place upgrade from Windows 7, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 semi-annual channel to Windows 10 LTSC is not supported.
Why Considering an In-Place Upgrade ?
Limitations
The following tasks aren’t compatible with the in-place upgrade
- Changing disk partitions.
- Changing the system architecture (x86 to x64 bits).
- Modifying the base OS language.
- When we have dual or multi-boot systems.
- Changing the computer’s domain membership or updating the local Administrators group.
- Outdated device drivers.
- WinPE Offline operation and third party disk encryption.
You can’t use a captured or custom image for upgrade.
Add an Operating System Upgrade Package
You need to import the complete Windows 10 installation media for creating upgrade packages. This upgrade package will be used to upgrade an existing Windows 7 or later to Windows 10 1909, one release of Windows 10 to later release of Windows 10.
Open Configuration Manager Console, Go to Software Library > Operating Systems > Operating System Upgrade Packages.
Right click Operating System Upgrade Packages and select Add Operating System Upgrade Packages. (you can create custom folder for selection)
In Data Source, click Browse and specify the network shared path to the root folder where you extracted source of an ISO file.
You can now specify to automatically import a single index rather than all image indexes in the file,using this option results in a smaller image file.
Select the option to Extract a specific image index from the specified WIM file. Then select the Image index from the drop down list.
In the General tab, provide Name, Version, and Comment. click Next.
Review the provided information, click Next to complete the wizard.
Wait for a moment, while exporting is in progress.
Export of a Single image is in progres
After successfully completion, click close to exit the wizard.
The add operating system upgrade package wizard completed successfully
Distribute Operating System Upgrade Packages
After importing upgrade package, you must distribute the content to distribution point. Right click Windows 10 Enterprise and click Distribute Content.
Review the selected content for distribution. click Next.
Add the distribution point or distribution point groups. click Next.
Review the selected distribution points, groups and click Next.
Review the settings and click Next.
Click close to complete the Distribute Content wizard.
You can monitor the content status, if its showing yellow color that means distribution is in progress.
In the Configuration Manager console, go to the Monitoring work space, expand Distribution Status, and then select the Content Status node. This node displays the packages.
If the content distribution was successful, it will be appear with Green color as shown.
Create In-place upgrade task sequence to upgrade an OS
In the Configuration Manager console, Go to the Software Library workspace, expand Operating Systems, and then select Task Sequences.
On the Home tab of the ribbon, in the Create group, select Create Task Sequence.
On the Create a New Task Sequence page of the Create Task Sequence Wizard, select Upgrade an operating system from an upgrade package, and then select Next.
On the Task Sequence Information page, specify the following settings:
Task sequence name: Specify a name that identifies the task sequence.
Description: Optionally specify a description.
On the Upgrade the Windows Operating System page, specify the following settings:
Upgrade package: Specify the upgrade package that contains the OS upgrade source files. Click on Browse option to select the source file. Verify that you’ve selected the correct upgrade package by looking at the information in the Properties pane.
Edition index: If there are multiple OS edition indexes available in the package, select the desired edition index. By default, the wizard selects the first index.
Product key: Specify the Windows product key for the OS to install.
Select an Operating System Upgrade Package form content folders.click OK.
Review the selected Upgrade package, Edition index and Product key. click Next.
On the Include Updates page, specify whether to install required, all, or no software updates. Then select Next. If you specify to install software updates, Configuration Manager installs only those updates targeted to the collections of which the destination computer is a member.
On the Install Applications page, specify the applications to install on the destination computer, and then select Next. If you select more than one application, also specify whether the task sequence should continue if the installation of a specific application fails.
Review the task sequence details, click Next.
After completion successfully, click close.
The Upgrade Task Sequence is created successfully.
Customize Upgrade Task Sequence
Under Software Library > Operating Systems > Task Sequences. Right click on task sequences and select Edit.
A task sequence will give you more granular control to:
- Perform pre-deployment checks.
- Pre-Upgarde –
- Manage drive encryption state
- Uninstall known problematic drivers and apps.
- Post-upgrade –
- Install additional drivers and apps.
- Manage drive encryption state.
- Configuration.
Recommended task sequence steps to prepare for upgrade.
This Check Readiness step will check whether the computer is ready for Windows 10 upgrade.You could modify these options in case you want.
Review others settings added in Task Sequence, you have made any changes here click Apply and OK.
Create a device collection
Read this post to know more about Collections by Anoop. Here
Deploy Windows 10 Upgrade Task Sequence
Review drivers and applications that are installed on computers. Before you deploy the upgrade task sequence, make sure the drivers are compatible with Windows 10.
On the General , click Browse to select your collection where you wish to perform the deployment.
On the Deployment Settings , select the Purpose of the deployment.
Available – The task sequence will appear in software center, Process will start only when users initiates.
Required – It will force the deployment at the deadline.
On the Scheduling tab, you can specify the schedule for this deployment.
On User Experience tab,leave the default selected options.
Click Next.
On Distribution Points page, you can specify how clients interact with the DPs to retrieve content from reference packages. click Next.
Review the selected options and click Next.
Results – Windows 10 In-Place Upgrade
Launch the Software Center from Start Menu on target device and select Operating Systems. you will see Windows 10 upgrade task sequence is available for installation.
Select the task sequence and click Install. Once you choose Install, no more user input will be required.
When the upgrade process starts. This step will take around 60-90 minutes depending on the environments.
When the task sequence begins, it automatically initiates the in-place upgrade process by invoking the Windows setup program (Setup.exe) with the necessary command-line parameters to perform an automated upgrade.
After the task sequence completes, the computer will be fully upgraded to Windows 10 1909.
Great article…
Although I wonder, whats the benefit to doing it this way with a task sequence rather than using the Windows 10 Servicing/All Windows 10 Updates node and selecting the feature update to 1909?
There’s limitation with servicing options while from TaskSequence we can full control the Image and do various changes on requirements. As whenever Image changes we having expectation & challenges to meet the changes according to environments. In that case TS is better option.
Can we push this task to the collection and user execute it when they’re not in the office ? (Content pre-downloaded at cccmcache) so they upgrade after hours
With this option users have to wait for download all the contents references in the TaskSequence Once TS available in Software Center.After that User can execute the installations.
also, More details on caching options of task sequence is explained by Vimal but it can become bit tricky https://www.anoopcnair.com/sccm-task-sequence-pre-cache-content/