PC: Image Build

[StarsFan4Life]

For the past several months, I have been using ImageX to apply standard images to machines. I actually never BUILT the standard images...and had asked several times from the person who built these to show me how he did it.

Last week, the person who built these images is no longer with our company. Our images are WAY out of date and run old software, drivers and still have WinXP SP2.

Now, we have about 6 different Dell models that we currently use in our company:

GX260
GX270
GX280
GX620
745
755

I do realize that I will need to "build" the PC to reflect what we want the standard image to be. This I have already done (installed XP, latest drivers, latest software, latest SP's) for each model. The next step is "creating" the image of the machine to place on the server that we hold the images at. This is where I am not sure what was done or what software was used.

Can anyone help me with this? Again, I do not know any of the software that was used to create the image. I can learn it....and from what I understand it is not hard at all. With that said, we build these images based upon 2 partitions (C: and D. The C: drive has all of the software installed on it. The D: drive (after we configure the registry to point here) contains the users "Documents and Settings" for each profile created. We do this in case the user stores work files on the pc locally instead of the network and the C: drive becomes corrupted.

Anywhoo...any help would be greatly appreciated. If anyone suggests any other methods to build/configure/apply images to machines, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[CalvinHobbes]

Acronis or Symantec Ghost

 

[Roguestar]

Ghost is pretty simple to use, the newer versions are much better. Acronis will do the same thing.

Just make sure you've it set up exactly the way you want it, then use Ghost or Acronis to make the image of the drive for you to store and reapply at your leisure. If you're going to build a machine of each type for each image, name the images like GX280_XP_SP2_[date].img or whatever so you can tell them apart easily.

 

[StarsFan4Life]

Can the Ghost images be applied via the network through commands/scripts?

 

[Roguestar]

What I did when I was working tech support was we'd boot off a version of ghost than ran from what was essentially a win98 boot floppy and contained the drivers for the machine's network card, then map the network location of the ghost images using the command line (NET USE Y: \\server\ghostimages\ or something to that effect), then boot up the little ghost program you can put on it and tell it to apply the image from the mapped drive.

 

[jdkick]

How many PCs are we talking about? Are you a Microsoft Volume License customer?

For image distribution i'm currently using Ghost Solution Suite, which gives a server/console for machine registration and executing tasks against those machines. That said, given the number of machines I manage (~1300) i've had a long standing project to migrate to another solution that is more tightly integrated with our directory services. If all goes well, that should be well underway by the end of the month.

And what's wrong with XP SP2. ;P I actually took a stab at building my last image with XP SP3 but found a few undocumented "features" that I didn't have the time to address.

 

[StarsFan4Life]

Good questions. I will answer them in order:

* How many PCs are we talking about? 450-500
* Are you a Microsoft Volume License customer? Yes
* What's wrong with XP SP2? Nothing

With users having the ability (less no restrictions) to install whatever they want, I want to have a grasp on a the "imaging" process. With the lack of knowledge (which I am here to overcome) it makes it hard to start with this process. After speaking with my boss, he advised if we need to "scrap" this process and start from scratch (new imaging process) then lets do it. Sounds good to me....just need a few pointers!

 

[StarsFan4Life]

Does Windows Deployment Services deal with this too?

 

[jdkick]

I you haven't done so already, I would invest at least a bit of time dissecting the existing imaging build/deployment process that you've inherited. At the very least, should you decide to start from scratch there could be a lot of little bits that need to be carried over. Alternatively, once you understand the existing process(es) you may find that starting from scratch may only be reinventing the wheel and isn't entirely necessary... tho it could still be a good exercise if you will be expected to maintain the images and associated deployment process(es) moving forward. Can you describe what you know of the existing process? What format are the existing images in (file extension)? How are images deployed? What is the boot process after deploying an image to a machine?

If you're not already using it in your existing imaging process, take a look at Microsoft Sysprep. If the existing process already implements Sysprep then the documentation is the best place for you to start. It can be found on the XP SP2 install disc (.chm files in DEPLOY.CAB).

As for WDS (RIS), yes, it's one solution for image deployment. Depends on whether it works for you/with your existing infrastructure. I've personally never used it, but I suspect it's a tool like any other and has it's pros/cons. There's a Step-by-Step guide here: http://technet.microsoft.com/e.../library/cc766320.aspx (note the references to Sysprep).

And I was just kidding about the SP2 comment.