Save time (and avoid pain) - Create a MDT test environment
From the archive (2011). Written for the tools of the time, so some details may be out of date.
To quote Johan, this is an “oldie but goodie”.
I’ve got an older post here that talks about the same principal, but always a good thing to read and practice.
Read Johan’s post over on his new blog here. Same principal applies and the same files/commands [image unavailable] The idea is to be able to quickly test your customsettings.ini without having to run a full deployment, this allows you to figure out the behavior and test database queries without running the full process.