I installed BDD 2007 (Business Desktop Deployment 2007) recently and started trying to figure it out. One of the first things I noticed was when it was copying my installation files from my Vista disk, it was putting them in a location that I didn’t want them in, and that I never chose. To top it off, the copy window offered no option to cancel, so I had to wait for the 2GB+ of files to copy before I could then go delete them.

Why did it do this? The poorly written Release Notes give a clue. The Installation section describes how to uninstall the software (go figure), and adds that you may have to manually delete folders, including the ‘Distribution’ folder that by default is on the disk that had the most free space when you did the install. Ah ha! It chose a location without asking me based on free space. But how do I choose where I want the distribution folder to go?

Poking around on the web I found this TechNet page that describes the install, and mentions how to do it. It’s definitely not intuitive, I’ve never seen an install with this kind of option choice in this location, it would generally be a separate step in the install. OK, so it may not be ‘Secret’ (caught your eye though, didn’t it!), but I’d bet that almost no one that’s done the install knew the options was there, or even thought to look until their Distribution folder ended up in a bad location. So, here’s how to install BDD 2007 and choose where you’d like your Distribution folder to go:

1. Download BDD 2007 from here. Double-click the BDD2007_x86.msi file (or BDD2007_x64.msi if you’re running 64-bit) to start the install
   
2. At the Welcome screen, hit Next
   
3. At the License Agreement screen, select the ‘accept’ button, and click Next
   
4. Here’s the magic screen, where you can do the Custom Setup.
   
5. On most installs I’ve seen, you have the option to click and choose if you want the feature installed or not, or if you want to be sure it’s installed locally, or on demand.
   
6. Notice on this one though, when I click on the ‘Distribution Share’ feature, a Location path is listed, and a Browse button appears.
   
7. Click on the Browse button and you can point to where you’d like your distribution point files located. In my case, I’m creating a folder called Distribution on my D: drive.
   
8. You’ll see the location you chose listed on the Custom Setup screen. Click Next.
   
9. The install proceeds, at this point a bit over 11MB will be placed in the Distribution point, much more will be added once you create your first Operating System.
   
10. When the installation is done, click Finish