Replacing MDT with FOG Project for OS Deployment

The Problem with MDT

MDT has been the go-to for Windows deployment for years and, to be fair, it does what it says on the tin — when everything lines up. The issue is that "everything lining up" involves the Windows ADK version matching your Windows version, WinPE behaving itself, your task sequence not silently failing halfway through, and your driver repository not becoming a mess of duplicates and conflicts over time.

For smaller environments without a full SCCM/Intune stack, MDT can feel like overkill that's simultaneously not quite enough. You end up spending more time maintaining the deployment environment than actually deploying machines.

The final straw for us was a WinPE build that simply refused to boot on a batch of newer machines with NVMe drives. Injecting the right drivers, in the right format, into the right WinPE architecture — it shouldn't be that hard. But it was.

What is FOG Project?

FOG is a free, open-source network cloning and management solution. It runs on Linux (we used Ubuntu Server) and handles imaging via PXE boot — machines boot from the network, connect to the FOG server, and either push or pull an image. No USB drives, no boot media to maintain, no per-machine faff.

It's been around since 2008 and has a solid community behind it. The interface is web-based, the setup is straightforward, and it supports unicast and multicast imaging — so you can image one machine or twenty at once without saturating your network unnecessarily.

Setting Up the FOG Server

Installation is a single script. You clone the repo, run the installer, answer a handful of questions about your network config, and it's done. On a clean Ubuntu Server install it took under 20 minutes including the DHCP/PXE configuration.

The web interface comes up at your server's IP and from there you register hosts, create image slots, set up snapins (think post-imaging software deployment), and schedule tasks. It's not the most modern UI but it's functional and everything is where you'd expect it to be.

One thing to get right early: DHCP options 66 and 67. If you're running DHCP on a Windows Server, you'll need to set the boot server and filename options to point machines to the FOG server for PXE. On a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti setup it's just as straightforward. Get this wrong and machines won't find the PXE environment — it's the most common stumbling block.

Capturing and Deploying Images

The workflow is simple. You set up a reference machine exactly how you want it — Windows installed, drivers loaded, software configured, Sysprep run — then PXE boot it and select "Image Upload" from the FOG menu. The server pulls the image down and stores it. From that point, any registered host can be imaged from it in a few clicks.

Deploy times depend on image size and network speed. Over gigabit ethernet a typical 25–30GB Windows 11 image lands in around 8–12 minutes. Multicast brings that down further when you're doing multiple machines at once, since the server sends data once rather than once per client.

Post-imaging with Snapins

Snapins handle software deployment after imaging — think of them as a lightweight alternative to MDT's application deployment. You upload an installer (or a script), assign it to hosts or groups, and FOG runs it automatically after the image task completes. We use this for anything that doesn't make sense baking into the base image: licensed software, client-specific applications, that sort of thing.

It's not SCCM. It's not Intune. But for smaller environments it covers the basics without needing a full endpoint management platform.

What MDT Does That FOG Doesn't

It's only fair to be straight about this. FOG is an imaging tool — it clones and deploys disk images. MDT is a deployment platform that can build Windows from scratch using WIM files, inject drivers on the fly, and run complex task sequences. They're not doing exactly the same job.

If you need unattended installs from install.wim with per-model driver injection and a multi-stage task sequence, MDT (or better, Intune with Autopilot) is still the right answer. FOG shines when you have a controlled hardware environment where a reference image approach is practical — which covers most small business and lab scenarios.

Was It Worth the Switch?

Yes, without much hesitation. The setup took an afternoon. Imaging is faster and more reliable. There's no ADK to keep in sync, no WinPE to rebuild when something breaks, and no licensing cost. The FOG server runs on an old workstation we had sitting in a cupboard.

It's also just less fragile. MDT task sequences have a habit of failing silently or throwing cryptic errors that send you down a two-hour rabbit hole. FOG either images successfully or it doesn't — and when it doesn't, the error is usually obvious.

If you're running MDT for a small to medium environment and spending more time fixing the deployment tooling than using it, FOG is worth an afternoon of your time to evaluate. The worst case is you learn something and go back to MDT. The best case is you simplify your workflow considerably.