MDT Toolkit speed up during OSD

Speeding Up the MDT Toolkit Package During OSD

If you’re using MDT integration within Configuration Manager for your task sequences, you may have noticed the “Using the MDT Toolkit Package” step sits and waits for a fixed pause before continuing — MDT includes a short deliberate delay at this point by default, which adds up across a large deployment if you’re building many machines. This delay is controlled by a setting you can override in your task sequence’s CustomSettings.ini (or via a task sequence variable), rather than something you have to edit inside the MDT toolkit files themselves. Adding the appropriate skip/delay override to your rules removes the pause so the toolkit step proceeds immediately once it’s loaded. Since the exact variable name and syntax can vary slightly between MDT integration versions, check the current MDT documentation or your specific integration version’s release notes for the precise setting name before adding it, rather than guessing — getting it wrong typically just means the pause remains rather than causing any harm, but it’s worth getting right so the change actually takes effect. Once applied, retest a full OSD deployment end to end to confirm the toolkit step now proceeds without the pause before rolling the change out to your production task sequences.

Major Update: MDT Is Now Retired (Updated for 2026)

Before chasing down the exact property name for this delay, it’s worth knowing that the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit itself has been retired — Microsoft announced MDT’s deprecation in December 2024, with end of support landing at the first Windows release after 10 October 2025. Existing MDT deployments, including ConfigMgr+MDT integrated task sequences like the one this post covers, continue to function, but MDT now receives no further updates, fixes, or support. Microsoft’s own guidance goes further: it recommends actively removing ConfigMgr’s MDT integration from task sequences where possible, since continuing to rely on it risks task sequence corruption and modification failures as the underlying components age without patches. Windows Autopilot or a plain (non-MDT) ConfigMgr OSD task sequence are Microsoft’s current recommended paths for new deployment work. On the specific delay itself: a check of Microsoft’s current MDT properties and Toolkit reference documentation found no officially documented setting (in CustomSettings.ini, as a task sequence variable, or in ZTIUtility.vbs) for skipping or shortening this particular pause. If you’ve found one that works reliably, it’s likely an unofficial/community workaround rather than a Microsoft-documented property — worth treating with appropriate caution given MDT’s now-frozen, unsupported state.

Resources

• Notepad++
• OSD