Windows ADK for Windows 11 has recently released by Microsoft. Windows ADK stands for Windows assessment and deployment kit. I will show you step by step guide on how to download and install Windows ADK 11 on SCCM server.

What is Windows ADK

Windows Assessment and deployment kit (Windows ADK) and WinPE add-on (which is also required to install as part of ADk installation). Windows ADK is a set of tools which helps deploying the operating system in larger environment. This comes with a list of applications helping customising the image, providing deployment tools, providing compatibility tools etc. There is a big list of features covered with it which I will show you later during installation phase.

Download and install Windows ADK offline and all related components.

We need to download 2 components separately, first is Windows ADK & other is WinPE add-on for the Windows ADK separately.

Download Windows ADK offline

For Windows ADK download, first we need to download adksetup.exe from Microsoft website. Once downloaded, execute the file.

Specify location popup will appear with default Install Path, change it to Download the Windows assessment and Deployment kit for installation on a separate computer and use Download path of your choice, I used d:\ADK11, click Next.

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Under Windows Kits Privacy page, select No for Allow Microsoft to collect insights for the Windows Kits, click Next.

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After accepting license terms, Download features window will show mentioning the overall progress of the binaries for Windows ADK, wait for some time to see the message download is complete.

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 Download WinPE add-on for the Windows ADK

Download adkwinpesetup.exe from Microsoft website. Once downloaded execute it. Specify download path to download it offline, I specified the path D:\ADKWinPEAddons, click Next.

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Following few other pages which we saw similar to Windows ADK installation, downloading will start. In few minutes downloading will be completed for offline execution.

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Uninstall Old version of Windows ADK

Before installing Windows ADK make sure you uninstall the previous version, on my system I  am having Windows assessment and Deployment Kit – Windows 10 version 2004 (10.1.19041.1) installed on SCCM server, or else you will be getting following error “You must uninstall the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit before you can install the latest version of the kit”

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Install Windows ADK 11

Initiate the installation by running adksetup.exe (location we used to download as d:\adk11).

Under Specify Location page, default path will be shown as C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\, if you don’t want to change it then click Next.

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Under Windows Kits Privacy, select No for Microsoft insights setting, and click Next.

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Under License Agreement, click Accept.

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Under Select the features you want to install page, you will get list of all components with few components selected by default:

  • Application Compatibility Tools
  • Deployment Tools
  • Imaging And Configuration Designer (ICD)
  • Configuration Designer
  • User State Migration Tool (USMT)
  • Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT)
  • Windows Performance Toolkit
  • Microsoft User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) Template
  • Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) Sequencer
  • Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) Auto Sequencer
  • Media eXperience Analyzer
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Seems like Windows IP Over USB has been depreciated as this is no longer available now, click Install to proceed.

This will proceed with installing features, once installation is done click on Close.

Install WinPE add-ons (Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit Windows Preinstallation Environment Add-ones)

Initiate adkwinpesetup.exe with default installation path.

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WinPE Add-ons will give one option to select as feature ie. Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) which includes boot images for following architecture:

Windows PE (x86)
Windows PE (AMD64)
Windows PE (ARM)
Windows PE (ARM64)

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Click Install to continue with it. Wait for a while to get it completed.

Verify installation

Open Programs and Features on Windows Server and verify the latest version of Windows ADK ie. Version 10.1.22000.1 is installed.

Time to create new boot image

This is the time we need to create new boot image under Configuration Manager console so that we can have better support while running task sequence. We can also update the existing boot image but it is not recommended as you may loose customisation done with the boot image.