Recently I built a new ConfigMgr/SCCM environment for a customer. I installed the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and created an MDT integrated task sequence in SCCM. The deployment task sequence that I created was very slow, it took at least a couple of hours to load. I noticed that the toolkit package was taking approximately 30 minutes to download. The site server was running Symantec antivirus and I had not yet configured any antivirus exclusions. This was a simple sign server environment therefore I add the exclusions listed in this article on the site server. In a more complex environment the exclusions listed in the article I referenced should be added to all site systems for this particular issue, at a minimum add the relevant ones on all of your distribution points. Once the exclusions were in-place the toolkit package downloaded in less than 1 minute and the entire task sequence installed in ~45 minutes.

For this particular issue you may likely be able to simply add the following exclusions however I added them all.

IIS Exclusions

  • Operational
    • IIS Compressed Files
      • IIS 6.0:
        • %SystemRoot%\IIS Temporary Compressed Files
      • IIS 7.0+:
        • %SystemDrive%\inetpub\temp\IIS Temporary Compressed Files
    • IIS Worker Process
      • %windir%\System32\inetsrv\w3wp.exe
      • %windir%\SysWOW64\inetsrv\w3wp.exe

ConfigMgr Imaging Exclusions

  • Operational
    • <InstallDrive>\ConfigMgr_OfflineImageServicing
    • %windir%\TEMP\BootImages
  • Performance
    • %SystemDrive%\_SMSTaskSequence

ConfigMgr Content Library Exclusions

  • Operational
    • <InstallDrive>\SMS_DP$
    • <InstallDrive>\SMSPKG<DriveLetter>$
    • <InstallDrive>\SMSPKG
    • <InstallDrive>\SMSPKGC$
    • <InstallDrive>\SMSPKGSIG
    • <InstallDrive>\SMSSIG$
  • Performance
    • <InstallDrive>\SCCMContentLib
    • <InstallDrive>\<ConfigMgr Backup Directory>
      • Ex. D:\SCCMBackup
    • <InstallDrive>\<ConfigMgr Package Source Files>
      • Ex. D:\SCCMSource