Image software

[robjduk]

Im having a bad day (thanks to the capita clowns) and now have it out for my MDT deployment for reasons I wont moan about but wonder what you all use for Windows imaging as I may just replace the thing with something which works out the box and you don't need a masters degree and 4 "how to" websites just to install one piece of bloody software...

 

I looked at Ghost as used to use that ages ago but appears to have been discontinued

 

SCCM is out for the moment

 

I have heard of another one mentioned on here ages ago but have to stress I am not touching anything Linux (my day is bad enough).

 

Any suggestions other than calm down and start again Monday?

[computerguy]

Imaging within windows or offline with a boot disc?

[6Foot2]

In the past we have used [in order]

 

RM build [so long ago I can't remember what it was called]

Symantec Ghost [Version 7 or 8 I think]

WDS

SCCM [We are using this now and it is by far the best: I wouldn't go back]

[DMcCoy]

I've always preferred to use just WDS on it's own without MDT, just build and deploy. Easier if you can deploy apps with App-V though.

[robjduk]

Hmm maybe I will give just plain old WDS a shout then. Would love SCCM however my recent attempt to deploy it hit a wall and just didn't have the money to continue getting support for it.

I love MDT but just randomly it will decide "that build which worked for a year... yeah that's not going to work anymore".

 

Just annoyed. Thanks for responses people.

[Arthur]

maybe I will give just plain old WDS a shout then.

Considering that MDT uses WDS, I would persevere with MDT since you can do a lot more with it.

 

Technically you can use plain vanilla Windows Deployment Services (WDS) and ADK to deploy Windows 8, but that's not a deployment solution. WDS and ADK are only plumbing tools for deployment, not a deployment solution, and MDT 2012 Update 1 will use them in the background anyway. Please do not waste your time trying to build a deployment solution on WDS and ADK, Microsoft has already done it for you: It's named MDT 2012 Update 1! (Source)

[dhicks]

I have heard of another one mentioned on here ages ago but have to stress I am not touching anything Linux (my day is bad enough).

 

There is Fog, but that is Linux-based, and we've just recently replaced our Fog server with Serva:

 

PXE Server for Windows - Serva

 

This runs on Windows and can deploy both assorted versions / distributions of Windows and Linux. It boots the relevant install media over PXE, so rather than installing a base image to a reference machine and then imaging machines with that you are simply running the Windows installer directly on each machine. We're distributing Windows 8.1 Enterprise with it, and so far haven't come up with any hardware that doesn't have built-in drivers, but extra drivers look easy enough to add if you need to. You'll need to set up an unattend.xml file for auto-installing Windows, and of course once your basic Windows install is done you'll need to install your software in some way. We use a rather clunky set of batch files and VBS scripts, but ideally I gues you would have everything packaged into MSI files for distribution via Group Policy.

[DMcCoy]

Considering that MDT uses WDS, I would persevere with MDT since you can do a lot more with it.

 

If you prestage WDS can chose an unattend file, deploy an image, add drivers, join the domain, run the image unattend and be *ready to use* after pressing just "F12" on a machine. How is this not a deployment solution?

 

Oh, and it can multicast too...

two images, two text files, a few AD permissions, some drivers and a prestaged MAC address... certainly much easier than MDT.

[Simcfc73]

Clonezilla and a NFS server on a QNAP server. Prepped W7 image always works, all I do is manually put in the computer name.

 

Not the slickest but simples....love it.

[Dos_Box]

Moving to correct forum.

[free780]

MDT for capturing. You need a ts that you can just set going so when you update the image its the same process. Any non ms solution seems to bring more issues. MDT saves a lot of time compared to wds alone.

[dhicks]

Wasn't there someone who was using Puppet for deployment? I'm not sure if that was servers, but I get the impression it can now be used to set up client machines.

[karan_jhr]

Look for Acronis Exchange backup and imaging solution. It creates the image as well as backup of individual mailboxes.

Gives you a variety of features and considered to be the best so far. I never had any issues with it

[cpjitservices]

Wasn't there someone who was using Puppet for deployment? I'm not sure if that was servers, but I get the impression it can now be used to set up client machines.

 

Yep Yuppet here, with Cobbler. We use it for server deployment mainly but can also be used for PC clients too.

[dhicks]

I've just come accross Boxstarter:

 

Boxstarter

 

Looks interesting, might be just the kind of thing we're looking for to take care of actually installing software once we've got a basic Windows install sorted.