IT admins are scrambling for alternatives in the wake of Microsoft’s MDT retirement

Microsoft's retirement of a key OS deployment (OSD) tool is forcing admins into a scramble to find new tools – and the cloud might not offer all the answers.

That's according to a survey of IT professionals from Recast Software, which found that although 99% say OS deployment is important, 18% are still relying on Windows Deployment Services (WDS) or the now-retired Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT).

The survey highlights the urgency of finding alternatives or replacements, according to David Segura, Senior Software Engineer at Recast.

Part of the drive to find alternatives is down to Microsoft retiring MDT in January, with WDS losing significant features and being partly deprecated.

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Segura noted that once the VBScript component is removed from Windows 11 releases – expected to happen next year – MDT will no longer be able to deploy new versions of the OS.

"The organizations that are managing this transition well aren't waiting for MDT to break," Segura said in a blog post. "They're planning now."

The shift to cloud hasn't changed the importance of bare-metal deployment, thanks to ransomware recovery, hardware upgrades, and production imaging at scale, which involves deploying OS builds across large fleets with a custom image, he said.

"With 81% of respondents rating bare-metal or disaster recovery OSD as having a high or critical importance, the urgency is real," Segura said. "Organizations leaning on a retired tool for a critical workflow face compounding risk the longer they wait."

Finding a better way

The results of the poll suggest that teams are moving to more modern management options, with 48% Intune-only and 40% hybrid.

Key pain points remain, however, including maintenance overheads (28%), driver management (25%), speed (20%), and costs (11%) all highlighted in the survey.

"These aren't new problems, but they're persistent ones," Segura said. "The common thread: SysAdmins want OSD to be less work, not more, especially as environments grow more complex."

While companies are shifting to Intune, or a mix of ConfigMgr and Intune, Segura noted that isn't always enough.

"The challenge is that OSD and imaging workflows don't map 1:1 from ConfigMgr to Intune," he said.

"Autopilot handles provisioning for new devices in Intune, but it wasn't designed for bare-metal rebuild or disaster recovery scenarios. Organizations moving to cloud management still need a way to handle those cases."

Next steps for admins

Segura warned that action was needed now, regardless of what alternative your company chooses.

"If your organization is still running MDT, the window to plan a replacement is narrowing," he said.

The first step is to audit your bare-metal OSD dependency to understand which workflows continue to rely on MDT or WDS.

For those switching to cloud management, it's time to audit OS deployment to see anywhere that lacks coverage from existing tools.

"Those are your risk areas," he said.

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