Useful software to include in image

[reprised]

Hi all,

 

I hope this is ok to post here. I'm building a new image and was wondering what useful software/tools you guys include in addition to all the standard software installed on your images.

 

[mac_shinobi]

BG Info :

 

BgInfo

 

A media player that supports more codecs than the normal windows media player ie media player home cinema / VLC or the likes

 

Maybe something like ultra defrag - not sure ??

 

Would be good to see what other people include though

[djwingfield]

A must have for a domain machine image,

 

RSAT - Remote Server Administration Tools

[TheMan100]

Adobe Flash Player

[FN-GM]

Plenty on here

 

The Essential Software List - Wiki

[Arthur]

Nothing!

 

All applications are deployed separately from the OS

[mac_shinobi]

Nothing!

 

All applications are deployed separately from the OS

 

Linux ?? Lol

[MatthewL]

By default we have

 

Office

Anti Virus

Flash

Java

Adobe Reader

VLC

Shockwave

 

And then a few of our own applications that have to be on.

 

Check the terms with regards to free software when installing, it maybe free at home but not in the corporate environment.

[FragglePete]

One to add to the list that has caught me out...

 

I cannot open Help files that require the Windows Help &#40WinHlp32.exe&#41 program

 

Some older programmes we have installed use Winhelp which is no longer included in Vista and Win7. An example for us is 2D Design. The above KB gives you an link to a .msu which you can inject into WDS.

 

Pete

[kaphc]

I've been looking for this thread or one like it all day - hurray. I'm about to do the same thing.

 

In addition to the suggestions above, I am including:

Audacity

Scratch

QuickMark (and .NET)

 

There's also a handy website called Ninite which allows you to select various freeware utility programmes and automates the installation for you. Though I've not used it yet, someone recommended it on another thread.

[Duke5A]

A must have for a domain machine image,

 

RSAT - Remote Server Administration Tools

 

Are you serious? You would have Group Policy Management, Active Directory Users and Computers, Sites and Services, and their ilk installed on a base image? Even having users appropriately locked down, that still sounds like a bad idea to me.

 

If you're making a base image, it should contain software common to the entire user base you're looking to deploy the image to. If you start adding software to it that only a select few will use you're bloating your image up. Trust me, keep it lean and universal. For software that isn't universally used I package up into MSI files and push it out through AD. For a 1500 user base I maintain four images - a Windows 2k base image, an XP, Win7 x32, and Win7 x64. By this time next year I'll probably only be maintaining Win7 64 and XP for a handful of legacy machines.

 

Software I'd recommend to include:

 

Adobe Flash

Adobe Shockwave

Adobe Air

Java

VLC

CutePDF (or any other open source PDF printer)

MS Office

MS Silver Light

Front Motion Firefox (GPO controlled Firefox)

7-Zip file archiver

Quicktime

Infra Recorder (open source CD/DVD burning software)

Anti-Virus

 

Lots of the above software comes with bundled auto update utilities. Since I use the same image for students and staff I disable these features and anything that might nag the user. Java, Adobe players, and FM Firefox updates are extremely easy to push out over AD.

 

It's also a good idea to keep a text file somewhere in image that you can use as a change log to keep track of changes you've made to the image. It'll give you an idea of how old an image is in the wild.

 

Good luck!

[SYNACK]

Software I'd recommend to include:

 

Adobe Flash

Adobe Shockwave

Adobe Air

Java

 

I'd leave the web filth out of the image and use their MSI's given that there is an update every other week to correct one or more gapeing holes in each of them. It will save you a bunch of time in the long run.

[Arthur]

Why do people add things like Adobe Reader, Flash Player, Air, Java & QuickTime to their images? Considering how often they are updated it doesn't make a lot of sense (as Synack mentioned).

 

Let's say your image includes Flash Player v10.2.159.1 and then Adobe release v10.3.181.14 a few days later, now your image is out of date. I imagine most people won't update their images that often, so you usually end up deploying the latest MSI. In that case, why not just do that in the first place and leave Flash Player out of the image?

 

Linux ?? Lol

Windows. Approx. ~95% of our applications are MSIs (mostly repackaged by me).

[MatthewL]

We have Flash and Java as or online learning environment for staff need them and our clinical system is Java based. As for Adobe Reader I would prefer FoxIt but they won't and we need it.

 

Would never let QuickTime on a machine, VLC all the way.

[Arthur]

We have Flash and Java as or online learning environment for staff need them and our clinical system is Java based.

Flash Player and Java are both available as MSIs though.

 

Would never let QuickTime on a machine

I would do the same if it wasn't for some educational software requiring QuickTime. We use VLC as the default media player though.

[RabbieBurns]

for staff images we have the smartboard software,

 

for both staff and students we have stuff like

 

clickview player

google sketchup

audacity

cs5

ultraVNC

office

[SYNACK]

We just put big unwheildly stuff in like Office, Encarta and stuff that absoloutly positivly won't install without an hour or so of handholding and hacks like MUSAC's unenviable sespool of DLL and OCX system files. Other than that everything is MSI so that we just install wat we need and we are always only installing the latest copy not installing and waiting for updates to catch it up.

[Duke5A]

I'd leave the web filth out of the image and use their MSI's given that there is an update every other week to correct one or more gapeing holes in each of them. It will save you a bunch of time in the long run.

 

Different methodology I guess... I update my images on monthly cycles, and if there is an updated Flash/Java/whatever I just let AD push it out to existing clients. In older versions of Flash and Shockwave it was a pain in the neck to get to the auto update features and customer participation turned off. That's primarily why I built them into the image so I could clean up after the installs. Flash now has a control panel plugin (finally), Java is deploy-able with transform files that I use to keep all the crap turned off, etc.. I'll have to look into stripping those out of the image.

[sparkeh]

Another nothing here.

When a machine is imaged SCCM puts it on the right collection and all the right software is installed. No need for time consuming image updates.

Adobe cruft can be kept up to date through SCCM+SCUP, meaning the endless stream of updates are pushed out via WSUS.

[reprised]

Thanks for the suggestions! The essential software list looks interesting.

[witch]

Be careful of some anti-virus - we had trouble with creating an image for Win 7 with the anti-virus on there - it wouldnt sysprep. Once the anti-virus was removed we had no more trouble

[FN-GM]

Be careful of some anti-virus - we had trouble with creating an image for Win 7 with the anti-virus on there - it wouldnt sysprep. Once the anti-virus was removed we had no more trouble

 

Just to tag onto that dont put Sophos on the image as the machines wont talk back to the console. You need to install it after the machines have been imaged.

[andyrite]

You can have Sophos in an image. Sophos KB covers this:- Sophos Anti-Virus for Windows 2000+: incorporating current versions in a disk image, including for use with cloned virtual machines

 

I don't include anything in the image. I let SCCM install it as part of the OSD task. (I do love SCCM!)

 

 

Andy