OS Deployment

[itgeek]

Hi I was just thinking about using server 2008 wds for os deployment. What do people think?

 

FOG?

GHOST?

WDS?

 

 

Thanks

[Ric_]

It depends what you are deploying and how often you deploy.

 

Ghost is an unnecessary expense nowadays with MS giving you WDS and MDT for 'free'. Also, SCCM is pennies on top of a Schools Agreement. FOG is a very good open source alternative.

 

I used to use legacy WDS and then FOG to deploy Windows XP and they both worked well. FOG was pretty amazing in fact. I now use SCCM to deploy Windows 7 and it is amazingly powerful if a bit of a PITA to configure at first!

[sparkeh]

Currently I am using SCCM to deploy and its frankly an amazing bit of software. If you are able to invest the relatively small amount of money to buy (and the probable large time investment to get it to work) then I highly recommend it.

 

Other than that I have used WDS and MSDT which are good and FOG which I had great success with.

I recommend having a play with the options, if you have a spare machine to try FOG on then its relatively easy to setup and the machine requirements are pretty low (I had it running on a beat up old machine with 256mb RAM which started out as my test machine but worked fine so went into production). SCCM has a free fully funtional 180 day trial as well but as I said that takes a bit more time to get up and running with.

[glennda]

I used to use ghost - can't say i had any problems with it - used an automated Sysprep just needed to add the name when prompted. I have also worked with RIS but you cannot deploy images this way only the O/S and then use MSI etc to install the software after (this is the slowest method but needs to input after pressing go) Currently we are deploying images using WDS using a basic image with the likes of sims/ office etc - this takes the same amount of time as ghost pretty much

 

Toby