Essential software installs on a new image?

[reggiep]

This doesn't seem to have been asked for a while so I'll ask now

 

I'm about to start making a new image for my windows XP machines, what software do you think I have to have on the image. I don't mean office, google maps etc. I mean stuff like realplayer, codecs etc.

 

I always seem to miss something out like a DVD codec or something so I'm trying to knock up a list so I can run through it every time I create a new image.

 

 

 

Ta

[maniac]

Off the top of my head,

 

Flash Player

Shockwave Player

MS Silverlight (It's going to start being used more and more, so may as well include it)

Real Alturnative (Instead of Real Player)

Quicktime (or the alturnative one)

VLC Player (as it will play anything!)

A Codec pack of some description, the one we've always used is the K-Lite Codec Pack.

Adobe Reader

.NET 1.1 and 3.5

JAVA runtime

 

I'm sure someone else will come along in a minute and add some other bits to that list.

 

Mike.

[laserblazer]

Although you've said not Office etc., don't forget the 2007 convertor if you are using an older version.

[Soulfish]

Would be interested in which alternatives (if any) to adobe reader people are using

[mb2k01]

Would be interested in which alternatives (if any) to adobe reader people are using

 

Foxit Reader is fairly good, but still personally use Adobe!

[powdarrmonkey]

You'll need all .Net runtimes, not just 1.1 and 3.5 - include 2.0 and 3.0 as well.

 

We've just started using Foxit with mixed results, the most annoying being the automatic update it tries and fails to perform.

[john]

Would be interested in which alternatives (if any) to adobe reader people are using

Foxit for us campus wide now No-ones noticed or complained yet as far as I can tell....

 

The Gimp

VNC

Windows Media Encoder (allows screen capture easily)

USBDLM

UPHC

[Jon_boy1984]

You'll need all .Net runtimes, not just 1.1 and 3.5 - include 2.0 and 3.0 as well.

 

.Net 3.5 includes 2.0 with SP2 and 3.0 with SP2 if you get the full redistro version (about 250mb).

[maniac]

.Net 3.5 includes 2.0 with SP2 and 3.0 with SP2 if you get the full redistro version (about 250mb).

 

That's what I thought, although I was going to check this morning. When you install .NET 3.5 it wipes out all references to .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.0 in add/remove programs so I've always thought of it as an 'upgrade' rather than needing all the different versions. .NET 1.1 is different, although I've never really been sure why.

 

mike.

[JJonas]

We have a Use New Install folder on our server with all of the things that need installing when we do a new build. We just install everything in that folder.

[jsnetman]

I don't use any of these programs in the image they are all deployed from group policy or in rare instances from a script. I must admit some of them are problematic. Plus if you incude in an image and you want to uninstall you will have to do it via scripting which will aslo be problematic.

[p858snake]

LightScreen (Set it to auto run then have it capture the keys so it auto saves screenshots in the selected location)

Wink

Compression Program (7Zip being my choice)

PDF Creator/Virtual Printer (CutePDF/Adobe Distillr would be my choices of either)

 

Maybe also Dia if you don't have a charting tool.

[mac_shinobi]

Just curious with regards to imaging if machines start to slow down etc ie after a couple of terms worth of usage do people just re image the computers or do you go around and delete un needed local profiles, temp files, defrag the hdd etc or what exactly ?

[jsnetman]

Our machines normally once a year. Unless we get a problem like a virus or corrupt software installation.

[Bezwick]

This is the check list i have for new images, obviously we have extras that are school specific.

So it all depends on how your school works, but might give you a few ideas.

 

Internet Explorer 8 and all, Windows XP Service Packs and Hotfixes

Adobe Flash, Shockwave and Acrobat Reader.

OpenOffice Suite (We use Microsoft office but add it anyway)

VLC

Windows Media Player updates

.Net all versions

K-Lite Codec Pack + latest Lame.dll

Delprof, wol.exe, zwlancfg and sdelete.exe added to windows folder. (useful if i every want to do a global script or scheduled task involving them)

Antivirus

Paint.net

USBDLM

Ashampoo Burning studio 6 (Free to Schools)

Quicktime & Real Player Alternatives

Java runtime

Google Earth

Screen Hunter

7-Zip

Scratch

sysprep

audacity

Plus a few vbs scripts for disabling autorun, setting IE connections to 10, and proxy settings on laptops etc.

 

if i know the machine is just going to be used for staff i add these too.

 

BorgChat

Teachers Report Writer

Smartboard Software

 

Hope this helps.

[gshaw]

This years' image included...

 

A folder on the C: called #INSTALL with all the exe source files for the freeware installers and also all the drivers (just in case a program asks for them, got caught with this once and never again!)

 

Flash (transformed MSI install and MMS.cfg tweak for auto updates)

Shockwave

Java (transformed MSI install to disable updates etc)

Adobe Reader (transformed MSI install)

K-Lite Codec Pack (might move to XP Codec pack next time)

Microsoft Photo Story 3

Hot Potatoes

Quicktime Alternative

Real Alternative

Microsoft Works Converter

Silverlight

DVD Flick (open source DVD burning app, converts anything to DVD )

GIMP (chucked it on this year as an example of a free image editing app)

Image Resizer PowerToy

All .NET versions via Windows Update

 

If using K-Lite Codec pack the AC3 filter in the pack doesn't seem to work, had to download it from the main site and send it out via SMS to get it working this year so worth checking that in your build...

 

Just curious with regards to imaging if machines start to slow down etc ie after a couple of terms worth of usage do people just re image the computers or do you go around and delete un needed local profiles, temp files, defrag the hdd etc or what exactly ?

 

Any signs of virus damge... reimage

Any sign of corrupted Windows install... reimage

Profile corruption... clear local profile

 

Takes so little time to re-image and be back up on the network usually it's the easiest solution. We also keep some spare machines we can just drop in while the original is being nursed back to health so the rooms aren't a machine down in the meantime

 

We usually image every year now but unless there's another nasty virus outbreak this year I'm hoping I won't need to next summer as there's some real PITA apps that need manual setup and some apps (Adobe CS4 I mean you!) seems to want one-to-one attention as well... what would I do without NetSupport School

Edited September 29, 2009 by gshaw

[Michael]

Logistix Update Packs. Take a look at the File Library

[Paid_Peanuts]

Is there anything else that has come along since the last post that would be worth while including in a master image file for all Windows 7 machines?

[featured_spectre]

a useful website for some of the stuff you need to download and install is Ninite Easy PC Setup - Download/Install Multiple Programs At Once you pick what you want to download, click run, it downloads and installs it for you! very helpful!

[runcmd]

PDFXchange instead of Adobe Reader