I'm looking for an affordable replacement for MDT for deploying roughly 100 Windows PCs at our main office, with possible expansion to remote offices. The process should install a current Windows build, add standard drivers, join the Active Directory domain, disable the built-in Administrator account, and install our standard software. USB and PXE deployment are both options, and I'm comfortable with bare-metal reimaging, although I'm open to provisioning-based approaches if they are more practical.
We are Microsoft 365 customers, but our corporate administrators have not granted our team access to Intune, Entra, or the other central administration portals, even though we are responsible for managing the devices. Because of that, Autopilot and Intune are not currently available to us. What tools or deployment workflows would you recommend?
4 Answers
OSDCloud is worth evaluating. It can deploy a relatively clean Windows installation, obtain current installation media, inject model-specific drivers, and run PowerShell-based configuration and application steps. It can also be launched through PXE, which makes it more suitable than USB-only tools when remote offices are involved. It is closer to a scripted deployment workflow than a traditional, heavily customized golden image.
If you want the least disruption, keeping the existing MDT/WDS environment running is still a defensible choice. Deprecated does not automatically mean nonfunctional, and it may be cheaper and less risky than replacing a workflow that already works. For remote offices, use a local deployment share or PXE infrastructure rather than sending all installation traffic across the WAN. If management insists on a supported commercial product, SmartDeploy, KACE, or a similar deployment appliance can cover imaging, drivers, domain joining, and application installation, but they will cost more.
A hybrid approach may be best: keep MDT for emergency reimages while developing an answer-file or OSDCloud workflow. That gives you a tested fallback instead of having to replace everything at once.
DeployR is another reasonable MDT replacement and is designed around similar deployment concepts. It has a free community edition and a paid version, so it may be worth testing in a lab before committing. It can handle bare-metal deployment, task sequences, drivers, and software installation without requiring Intune access.
We use it as our MDT replacement and it has been working well. I’d verify the current feature set and support model before rolling it out to every site.
For a straightforward, low-cost setup, use an answer file with Windows installation media. An unattend file can automate setup, create or disable accounts, configure regional settings, and launch post-install scripts. You can add drivers with pnputil or DISM, then install applications from a SetupComplete script or a PowerShell deployment script. The same media can be booted from USB or delivered through PXE. You will need to update the media or answer file periodically for major Windows releases.
This works especially well when deployments are occasional. For a larger rollout, I’d pair the answer file with PXE and keep drivers and application installers outside the image so the base media stays easier to maintain.
A PXE menu backed by OSDCloud is a good fit if you want technicians to choose a deployment workflow without maintaining a large collection of captured images.