New PCs Deployment

[armadillo]

If you want a copy of my Sysprep stuff drop me a PM, im sure we can sort something out

 

Hi Glennda, Yes please email me the sysprep file.

Thanks a lot.

[FN-GM]

Hi Glennda, Yes please email me the sysprep file.

Thanks a lot.

 

my name isnt Glennda

 

Whats your e-mail?

[HodgeHi]

You can use WDS on XP as well. Installing WDS on Server 2003 R2 will give you the option to use legacy mode. Once all the tasks of getting the system set up and the additional drivers added to the riprep.inf file then the process is pretty straight forward.

 

You can even pre-stage the machines in the AD (if its like RIS used to be) and then this will join the clients to the AD as well as rename them as it deploys the images to the clients. Similar to the Speccops mentioned earlier i should think.

 

You can't deploy apps with it though. But if you already have software to do that anyway then just install the client on the machines before creating the image.

[armadillo]

my name isnt Glennda

 

Whats your e-mail?

 

Sorry FN-GM for calling Glennda, it was late and I was nackered. I appreciate you offering the sysprep filem thank a lot. here is my email [email protected]. Thanks for your help.

[armadillo]

You can use WDS on XP as well. Installing WDS on Server 2003 R2 will give you the option to use legacy mode. Once all the tasks of getting the system set up and the additional drivers added to the riprep.inf file then the process is pretty straight forward.

 

You can even pre-stage the machines in the AD (if its like RIS used to be) and then this will join the clients to the AD as well as rename them as it deploys the images to the clients. Similar to the Speccops mentioned earlier i should think.

 

You can't deploy apps with it though. But if you already have software to do that anyway then just install the client on the machines before creating the image.

 

Thanks for your input Hodgehi it was very useful. I will consider all the options and will keep you all up to date soon. Thanks.

[Dos_Box]

I think, as others here have hinted at, the days of using traditional imaging software to roll out the O\S over a network are dead. They simply are not versitile enough, whilst even the 'out-of-the-box' server tools offer far better deployment and application installation methods. Yes, they take a bit of learning and configuring, but once done you can sit back and watch the server take the strain, and better still, they're free!!

[Tricky_Dicky]

You can't deploy apps with it though. But if you already have software to do that anyway then just install the client on the machines before creating the image.

 

Do you mean you can't deploy apps after the original image? We've got WDS setup and it allows you to choose either indivdual apps or selections or apps, so for example I have a certain selection for Laptop and others for classroom machines. These are all running XP.

[IanT]

I use sysprep here, PXE boot, give the pc a name, come back sometime later and its done.

[mbhmirc]

We used to use ghost or Unattended, A Windows deployment system: Welcome. I used to love unattended been some time since I've used it though. Started off with put a cd in and pick what we want on that machine then went PXE for larger installs. Ran windows scripts after to setup all kinds. What I did like was it was a proper install per machine not an image.