Preferred OS deployment

[ict_support]

What are peoples preferences for Large desktop OS deployment / imaging. Operating systems could be windows xp and windows 7? What are the pros and cons?

[carvjo]

Specops Deploy here - it's easy (took one day to set up) and it works - it does application deployment too....

 

We converted 400 machines from XP to Windows 7 in a few days.. if you want to see it working and can get to Oxford - pm me..

[john]

We used MDT with WDS and its a great tool for the job and all free from Microsoft

[sted]

currently using mdt2010/wds mainly (i have the odd pc that gives issues the one im working on for instance) before that used ghost. Im only using mdt in a fairly basic way but if i get time to sit down and fiddle it looks like it does all sorts of useful stuff even more if you have sccvm that allows 0 touch installs and better app deployment but costs money

[PiqueABoo]

MDT.

SpecOps Deploy used to be s/w deployment only, but now wraps (presumably seriously simplifies) MDT.

[ict_support]

Thanks all for your replies

[deano]

Currently using MDT 2010 and WDS for image deployment. Just finished configuring software installation for our SCCM 2007 R3 so next task is to set up the zero touch installation!

[riffleman]

Sccm is great at deploying OS and images, especially Win7/Office 2010. Managed to deploy 400 workstations in a few hours.

[Duke5A]

I'm using WDS for image management and deployment. Haven't touched MDT (plan on messing with it eventually) since I prefer to build my images by hand and capture manually. I build my reference images in a VM on an ESXi host, roll up driver support for multiple hardware specs, and install common software. All other software is deployed as MSI packages via Group Policy.