Question: Referencing variables in Task Sequence steps

[SBolt11]

Good Morning all FriendsOfMDT,

I have been using MDT PSD for a little under a year now and I've found it brilliant so far.

I have a question which may or may not be obvious, someone must have already tried this.

My example would be that I want to echo the OSDComputerName variable, which is set in person, in WinPE during the build in the normal way of typing it in, to a text file on C:\Logs.

The CustomSettings.ini sets the computer name field in WinPE to start with, and I edit that with what I actually want it to be. I assume that variable is now set, the build progresses through the TS steps and gets to the step which has a command line of echo %OSDComputerName% > C:\Logs\ComputerName.txt.

My task sequence fails at this point and no file is made. The folder does exist, I make this earlier on in the TS.

I can see in the logs that the TS attempts to do this, the variable listed in the command is %OSDComputerName%, I'm not sure if this should be resolved at this point and listed with the actual computer name or not.

Is this possible? Have I missed something really obvious?

I know I can get the computername from $env variables in another way, but I specifically want to be able to use the TS variable during a TS step, and I'm just using OSDComputerName for testing. I guess this may also apply to the question of: Can you use the %OSDComputerName% variable in an IF statement within the TS? E.g. run this TS step if the computer name is this.

Thank you in advance,

SBolt11

[SBolt11]

Good Morning,

I have worked around this now. But I would like to know how to reference deployment variables as above, if it's possible.

Kind Regards,

SBolt11

[TheRealMethuselah]

Powershell referencing works like this: echo $env:COMPUTERNAME

[SBolt11]

Thanks for the above, but I wasn't look to at PowerShell env variables as such, but OSD variables. So my example could be any of the OSD / MDT variables, not ones I can get any other time.

[mtniehaus]

Inside a PowerShell script, you can use something like:

$tsenv:OSDComputerName

You can use variables as conditions on steps too. There are a few variables (e.g. "ScriptRoot") that are copied from the TS environment (tsenv:) to "normal" environment variables (env:), but that's not the case for all of them.

[SBolt11]

Thanks for your answer, I will try and give it a go when I next do some testing. Just to be sure, you're saying I'm better off using a script and referencing inside the script instead of directly on the MDT TS step?

[GeoSimos]

Thanks for your answer, I will try and give it a go when I next do some testing. Just to be sure, you're saying I'm better off using a script and referencing inside the script instead of directly on the MDT TS step?

AFAIK, you can't just use a PowerShell command as a TS Step (at least not yet), you have to do so in a script and call that script from the "Run PowerShell Script" step.