[wds] Recommendations please for school imaging ...

[soveryapt]

Right then, it's that time of the year where I look towards (as I'm all you are too) jobs that need doing over the summer holidays and start getting prep in place.

 

This years main thing will be a total reimage of the school. Not an upgrade, but reimaging all the desktops, so I want to know what you all think is the best way to go ahead with this.

 

When I first started here, all the machines were individually built and unless the machine was in the ICT lab, it got forgotten about. So, I moved to a system where I had streamlined an XP disk with all the patches and bits I needed and then I used GPO to push out the rest and just had the odd manual install that I needed to do on the computers.

 

Then I upgraded to Windows 7 and Server 2008R2 so I've started using WDS as the method for pushing out and I took the option to build a full image with all the software in that I needed and then deployed this.

 

What I'm wondering this time (now that Office 2010 is somewhat deployable using scripts) is do I go for a vanilla base image (obviously with all the SP and updates etc) and then deploy everything else via GPO so that I have a bit more control over things?

 

Or would you go somewhere inbetween or something else completely?

 

Thanks

Andy T

[sted]

personally i try and have as little software on the base image as possible and sue script/gpo to deploy but to be honest its 6 of one 1/2 a dozen of the other

[soveryapt]

personally i try and have as little software on the base image as possible and sue script/gpo to deploy but to be honest its 6 of one 1/2 a dozen of the other

 

Yeah, that's pretty much why I'm reconsidering .. last time I created an image for this school was about 18months ago and it was done in such a short time frame that I didn't really have the option other than to create a one shot image .. but this time, I'm taking the control and actually planning .. lol ..

[Steve21]

What I'm wondering this time (now that Office 2010 is somewhat deployable using scripts) is do I go for a vanilla base image (obviously with all the SP and updates etc) and then deploy everything else via GPO so that I have a bit more control over things?

 

 

Base image here, then all software deployed after. At least that way it solves any issues if you don't want software deployed, or need a "quick" rebuild if something breaks, and it's easier to add new software etc etc later.

 

Steve

[mrbios]

Personally i went for the method of sticking absolutely everything (bar visual studio 2010) in to an image so all software could be used everywhere. Obviously there's the odd bit of department specific software that is only licensed to X amount of machines but we have so few (1 or 2 now i think and both in the same department) that this wasn't an issue.

 

Added up to an image of about 25GB (30GB for the one with VS2010 in, which is one IT room only) and in most rooms now i have 40GB SSDs as the only drive or 60GB ones in the room that runs VS2010.

 

Admitedly though once SCCM2012 is finally released i'll be moving to a system of deploying software where it's needed as, the way i understand it anyway, is SCCM deploys the software after OS install rather than deploying any sort of "image". If i was sticking with WDS though i'd avoid the bother of packaging each app for deployment and just stick it all in one.

 

It's swings and roundabouts really, there are benefits in both ways of doing it and negatives in both so go with which way you'd prefer

 

EDIT: i should probably add, if i didn't have SSDs i'd be doing it the opposite way to how i am currently. The fact SSDs don't care if you pack the drive full of stuff = might as well just have it all

Edited April 25, 2012 by mrbios

[DrPerceptron]

We use MDT2012 here. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

 

I wasn't happy managing images all the time, so now, we push out the WIM off the DVD and choose the software we want on machines at deployment time - if we want anything post-deployment, we'll roll it out over Group Policy or use Impero to push it out and check it into MDT for future deployments.

 

It's an amazing, tiny little tool that will also deal with backing up and restoring user data for you as well.

[K.C.Leblanc]

Here we use a clean image and then use WPKG to deploy software as needed.

 

EDIT: We use WDS (not using MDT yet) to deploy W7 and ghost 7 (don't laugh it's awesome) to deploy XP (it also support Windows 2000, 98ss, 95 and NT4).

 

Any request to install Vista is resolved with a swift blow from a foam rubber clue bat.

 

EDIT EDIT: The last person who asked for OS2 was never seen again.

Edited April 25, 2012 by K.C.Leblanc

[soveryapt]

EDIT: i should probably add, if i didn't have SSDs i'd be doing it the opposite way to how i am currently. The fact SSDs don't care if you pack the drive full of stuff = might as well just have it all

 

LOL .. SSDs .. oh how I dream of that day ..

[soveryapt]

We use MDT2012 here. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

 

I wasn't happy managing images all the time, so now, we push out the WIM off the DVD and choose the software we want on machines at deployment time - if we want anything post-deployment, we'll roll it out over Group Policy or use Impero to push it out and check it into MDT for future deployments.

 

It's an amazing, tiny little tool that will also deal with backing up and restoring user data for you as well.

I never seemed to quite get my head around using MDT .. lol .. I might take another look though .. Ta

[soveryapt]

Here we use a clean image and then use WPKG to deploy software as needed.

 

Oooo .. I forgot about WPKG .. I started looking into that a bit back .. but I've slept since then .. might take another ganders at that for things that I can't GPO out .. (such as office as that would tie in with a visual display of it being installed then from what I remember - though I think that's GP-WPKG - but same principle)

[localzuk]

I do a mix of the 2 here - we build a base image, store that, and then make a duplicate with as much in as possible.

 

Some stuff is installed by GPO (mostly things that update regularly, like VLC, Java, Flash etc...).

[mavhc]

I make an image with everything in, almost. A few things I add later because they were bought after the image, or are slightly different, or limited licences. Quicker to make 1 big image if everyone's having everything. Annoying when some department splits off and wants to take some software with them. WDS, auto put into an OU that installs about 5 more packages. Then moved into a department OU that installs the rest. Also use WDS's winpe and imagex to install xp via a batch file

[plexer]

We now install os from MDT 2010 and then GPO to deploy s/w either with a native msi or in the case of office 2010 using the published script.

 

Starting to look at App-V and creating MSI rather than streaming from a server.

 

Ben

[TechieWils]

Personally I use fog and have a hardware independent image for xp and just finished testing one with win 7 that has absolutely everything including the kitchen sink. The win 7 image is 32 gb and auto renames and joins the domain.

 

It takes 40 min from clicking go to bring ready for use per machine or 3.5 hours to do 30 machines and must say it's a god send. Would love to have a look at sccm looks very interesting.

[soveryapt]

Personally I use fog and have a hardware independent image for xp and just finished testing one with win 7 that has absolutely everything including the kitchen sink. The win 7 image is 32 gb and auto renames and joins the domain.

 

It takes 40 min from clicking go to bring ready for use per machine or 3.5 hours to do 30 machines and must say it's a god send. Would love to have a look at sccm looks very interesting.

 

I looked at FOG a bit back, but as we have WDS, it seemed to make more sense to go with the native solution. Thanks though

[jamesfed]

Our current method works around both MDT and App-V to get things out there.

 

We have a image of Windows 7 which contains all the IE plugins, all Windows updates, the App-V client and nothing else (not even Office!!).

When you go to image a machine using MDT we have a number of 'task sequences setup' one for staff (which locally install Outlook 2007, Word 2007, a connection client to our LEA SIMS service and our IWB software) and one for students (which is pretty much blank).

 

From that point on everything is down to App-V - every time a user logs in App-V checks which applications they should have access to and presents them in the start menu.

This way a science teacher can go to English and still have all the science applications.

 

It is the best way to run things that I've found so far and makes for very quick deployments with just a 6GB image!

[ben604]

Our current method works around both MDT and App-V to get things out there.

 

We have a image of Windows 7 which contains all the IE plugins, all Windows updates, the App-V client and nothing else (not even Office!!).

When you go to image a machine using MDT we have a number of 'task sequences setup' one for staff (which locally install Outlook 2007, Word 2007, a connection client to our LEA SIMS service and our IWB software) and one for students (which is pretty much blank).

 

From that point on everything is down to App-V - every time a user logs in App-V checks which applications they should have access to and presents them in the start menu.

This way a science teacher can go to English and still have all the science applications.

 

It is the best way to run things that I've found so far and makes for very quick deployments with just a 6GB image!

 

This sounds ace, how much configuration was required to get this up and running? Is it easy to manage?

[Norphy]

@jamesfed - What kind of backend do you have for that arrangement? How many servers, how powerful? How many users and workstations do you have? Have you run into any performance issues?

[jamesfed]

The MDT server is nothing special - anything that works with WSUS will work with MDT just fine (after all it is just the same thing but with a few more features).

 

App-V accualy uses the local processing power on the PC the user is at - all it does is figues out which applications the user should have access to and provides the virtual application files to the PC as and when required. So again nothing special needed however we do run ours off a PCI-E SSD but I know of people running it with much less.

 

Most of the time to setup is in getting the virtual applications made up however that can be done over a good few days using virtual box

 

In the long run it is a BIG time saver - smaller image to look after (fire it up every now and again to apply the latest IE plugin updates and windows updates) and then do your application updates on the fly using App-V.

 

Its a pretty fool proof way to deploy applications as well as App-V dosn't insall anything on the local machine (although it does cache the files sent to it which is essential for notebook PCs) and so need to use MSIs to uninstall/reinstall.

[jamesfed]

I'll see if I can get a video of the whole process in action up on our YouTube channel today sometime (if the NM has brought his video camera in).

[soveryapt]

Our current method works around both MDT and App-V to get things out there.

 

We have a image of Windows 7 which contains all the IE plugins, all Windows updates, the App-V client and nothing else (not even Office!!).

When you go to image a machine using MDT we have a number of 'task sequences setup' one for staff (which locally install Outlook 2007, Word 2007, a connection client to our LEA SIMS service and our IWB software) and one for students (which is pretty much blank).

 

From that point on everything is down to App-V - every time a user logs in App-V checks which applications they should have access to and presents them in the start menu.

This way a science teacher can go to English and still have all the science applications.

 

It is the best way to run things that I've found so far and makes for very quick deployments with just a 6GB image!

 

Sounds like a dream setup .. alas, as with many other schools, our budget has been cut so much I'm lucky to have a job into next year (our other techy wasn't so lucky, so the school is running on low support now .. should be interesting) .. What's the licensing like on App-V though, is it a per connection style license? I've never really looked into it you see.

[Norphy]

App-V is an SA benefit. You need to have an EES licence with software assurance.

[soveryapt]

Does anyone know of any good walk throughs / how tos out there for MDT by the way? I'm quite interested to see if this might be a better way of working with it all..

[DrPerceptron]

Download: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

 

I've been skimming through the Print-Ready Documentation for download there and it seems to cover all the bases regarding getting it up and running.

[PiqueABoo]

The MDT server is nothing special - anything that works with WSUS will work with MDT just fine (after all it is just the same thing but with a few more features).

 

MDT and WSUS are completely different.