rednight Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Hi there, I am looking for some imaging software to create images of teacher and student laptops. Years ago (1997 ....) I used to use commandline Ghost and it worked a treat. What are other people using for this job nowadays and how much is it likely to cost me? (or is there a free alternative?!). Thanks!
mrbios Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 For simplicity: Windows Deployment services built into server 2008R2 or 2012. For a more complex but feature filled setup: System center configuration manager 2012 Quite a few people here use FOG but personally i prefer WDS. Back in the days of server 2003 + XP we used to use ghost, didn't sysprep pcs and installed ran newsid as part of our initial setup........boy am i glad those days are far behind us
ass17 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 There are loads of free Linux based disk cloning tools like Clonezilla etc.. See below http://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/linux-based-disk-cloning-imaging-software/ We still use Ghost even with sata disks and windows 7 OS's. no issues at all, we never sysprep, don't see the point.
6Foot2 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Currently using WDS but we expect to be moving to SCCM over the Summer.
jamesfed Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 If you need more than WDS and don't want to fork out for System Centre Config Manager the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is pretty darn good. You feed it your pre sysprepped image and it then carrys out a 'Task Sequence' which adds the required drivers for the PC you are imaging (no need to look after separate images for different hardware) and can also install applications once the PC is imaged which helps with the AV products out there which don't like sysprep.
Simcfc73 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Been using clonezilla for years, I create a flat w7 image on the smallest hard drive I can fund then away I go, 90% of time it gets all its drivers. I did get it so its a bootable usb too which is cool. 6 mins.
rednight Posted March 22, 2013 Author Posted March 22, 2013 Thanks for your postings! Luckily, all my hardware is standard, so I have 30 netbooks all identical, 15 teacher laptops all identical - so once I have set one up I can clone to the others. Once the initial deployment is done, I hope to just keep the two images stored safely somewhere for a rainy day when someone has a disaster!
Cache Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 I use wds with a setupcomplete.cmd script to install office, antivirus and run the Windows Self Assessment which is working well. Planing to move to SCCM eventually though.
SovietRussia Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Thanks for your postings! Luckily, all my hardware is standard, so I have 30 netbooks all identical, 15 teacher laptops all identical - so once I have set one up I can clone to the others. Once the initial deployment is done, I hope to just keep the two images stored safely somewhere for a rainy day when someone has a disaster! Just a word of warning, if you want to use FOG, turn OFF UEFI and Secure Boot (if you have it), FOG does not work 100% properly with UEFI on. FOG also allows you to set datastores like ESXi etc
Brpilot99 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Ive recently switched from ghost to Redo ..... Its fab and free
VeryPC_Tom_M Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 We use MDT for deployment to the majority of our PCs.
dany2010 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Thanks for your postings! Luckily, all my hardware is standard, so I have 30 netbooks all identical, 15 teacher laptops all identical - so once I have set one up I can clone to the others. Once the initial deployment is done, I hope to just keep the two images stored safely somewhere for a rainy day when someone has a disaster! We have just moved to using WDS and MDT together for a installing our machines. No more cds or images. Although this would seem like over kill for your network with only two types of machines it would really help as images get old and outdated and take time to recreate. We used to use active @ however. Good bit of kit.
themightymrp Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 I use MDT to create a reference image, then I sysprep it and use Ghost. Never been a problem with our PC's
6Foot2 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 I use MDT to create a reference image, then I sysprep it and use Ghost. Never been a problem with our PC's We were using Ghost on our Viglen network with XP based workstations. We moved to a vanilla network and kept using Ghost. We only moved over to WDS when we moved over to Windows 7. I find it much easier. I don't know how we are going to get on with SCCM.
andy_nic Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 from Easter Windows Deployment services built on a 2012 server. As ghost by symantec doesn't fully support windows 8 yet. got to say I'm impressed with WDS to now have 1 image for all laptops 1 image for all PC's. when a new model comes in just add the new drivers and your done. where before with ghost I could never get it work with different hardware model. so had to have separate images.
VeryPC_Tom_M Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 We were using Ghost on our Viglen network with XP based workstations. We moved to a vanilla network and kept using Ghost. We only moved over to WDS when we moved over to Windows 7. I find it much easier. I don't know how we are going to get on with SCCM. AFAIK, MDT connects SCCM and WDS, so it'll be easier to manage than straight WDS. 1
6Foot2 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 AFAIK, MDT connects SCCM and WDS, so it'll be easier to manage than straight WDS. Easier than WDS? Sounds good! WDS is already easy enough to use/manage.
VeryPC_Tom_M Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Easier than WDS? Sounds good! WDS is already easy enough to use/manage. << hates injecting drivers into WDS. Maybe I'm lazy.. maybe I hate command line.. maybe I've been spoilt, by using MDT
6Foot2 Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 << hates injecting drivers into WDS... I have only had to inject drivers to our image once. It was a chore but I was able to get my head around it. Wouldn't want to be doing it often though.
Norphy Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 << hates injecting drivers into WDS. Maybe I'm lazy.. maybe I hate command line.. maybe I've been spoilt, by using MDT I'll admit that it's been a while since I did it but why use the command line to inject drivers into WDS? In Windows 2008 R2 at least, you can add them to the console just like you can with SCCM and MDT. FWIW, we use SCCM for OSD.
andy_nic Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 (edited) I'll admit that it's been a while since I did it but why use the command line to inject drivers into WDS? In Windows 2008 R2 at least, you can add them to the console just like you can with SCCM and MDT. FWIW, we use SCCM for OSD. i was about to say am i missing something because I've only ever used 2012 and just a case of right click add driver and point to the folder containing all the new driver you want to import.. very handy when dell now do driver CAB files. even then i don't think it injects the drivers i think when it installs it just looks up the driver database to collect the ones which match the hardware IDs. Edited March 22, 2013 by andy_nic spelling
mrbios Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Only time i've ever had to mess around with any drivers in WDS bar adding them to the store is to inject network drivers into the boot image, but that's dead simple and no command line involved. Can't even think what you'd need command line driver injecting for?
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