Hey all!
We are a medium sized MSP and relatively new to using ImmyBot to assist with new PC deployments. Initially I was the only engineer tasked to build out deployment logic for our clients and have been testing these on a spare laptop I have at my office. However as we grow, we are needing to add more engineers tasked to build out and maintain our various client deployments. Because of this we are trying to find a better way to test these deployments using a central server with HyperV installed, but I haven’t quite figured out how to mount the PPKG file to the freshly created windows VM within HyperV. This lead me to here and I’m curious, how do you various companies utilizing this fine platform test your deployments before they go live? Do you use spare hardware, do you use virtual machines, or do you just wing it and hope for the best?
Thanks!
Dylan Bradley
So I personally use a spare laptop that I have on my desk but I am looking to just start doing it on VMs. Immybot did recommend sandbox mode though which when I messed with it before did seem like it would be a good idea. Here is their doc
Let me know though if the sandbox ends up working for you if you decide to test it! I am also starting to look for better ways to do this.
Yea we saw that option too, and while that might help in testing very lightweight deployment processes, it won’t allow us to fully test our client’s onboarding processes including joining them to AAD/AD, pushing out custom deployment scripts for line of business apps they might use, etc. For now we have a server spun up to be a HyperV host and have had success in building a Windows 11 VM and booting it to the “Select a Region Screen”. Once here if you burn your PPKG file to an ISO, mount the ISO to the VM, click on United States (or any other country in the list) and hit your Windows key five times it will kick off the OOBE experience and install the ImmyBot PPKG file.
For now we are finding it easier to deal with this, test it, delete the test VM, and build a new one. But if anyone else has a better test enviorment configuration I’m all ears!
I’ve done this a couple of different ways.
First, for your VM, download the ISO instead of just the PPKG:
What I did was create a VHDX that had Windows installed but had not yet come up into OOBE. So I used that as a template and just scripted new VM creation with that base VHDX and also attached the ISO.
The other way I’ve done it is to snapshot the VM right after it is onboarded into Immy, and then just revert to the snapshot occasionally, and just run a deployment detection to force the inventory scripts to execute against it.
Sandbox is also a decent option, but it used to not persist its contents after it was rebooted.
Finally, I do have dedicated testing devices (a micro form factor Dell, Lenovo, and HP) that I just keep a tiny sandisk usb plugged in at all times with Ventoy, Windows ISOs, and a PPKG to onboard to a test tenant.
I think i can help. Reach out to me. Email me @ [email protected]
I just tried the Windows Sandbox too - it worked pretty well and it even persisted some installations after an internal reboot from the Sandbox VM.
Does anyone know if we need to essentially treat the sandbox like any other device in terms of maintenance/licensing with Immybot?
