New desktops - do you keep the recovery partition?

[SteveB_NI]

I've just taken delivery of new desktops (HPs) for a school Win 2008R2 network - with currently XP clients.

 

The desktops came with Win7 Professional installed (for future use) and alongside the standard partitions there is one called Recovery.

 

Whenever you get new desktops - and they happen to have a recovery partition - do you wipe the entire HDD & re-install Windows or whatever & just run with a single partition? It will be connected via domain anyway so I don't see the point of having partitions on the actual HDD?

 

 

Thanks!

[round2it]

I've just taken delivery of new desktops (HPs) for a school Win 2008R2 network - with currently XP clients.

 

The desktops came with Win7 Professional installed (for future use) and alongside the standard partitions there is one called Recovery.

 

Whenever you get new desktops - and they happen to have a recovery partition - do you wipe the entire HDD & re-install Windows or whatever & just run with a single partition? It will be connected via domain anyway so I don't see the point of having partitions on the actual HDD?

 

 

Thanks!

I always clone one of the workstations before turning on for the first time as this can then be put back on at a later date if required.

 

Best to do a fresh install so you don't have all the bloat ware

[jamesfed]

The recovery partition is purely there if you want to restore the PC back to the manufactures default install of Windows.

 

We completely blank every desktop that comes in and put on our own OS image (Windows 7 at the moment) on it and in the process destroy the recovery partition as it is of no use for us.

[Oaktech]

Hell, I don't even look at what the machine has on it out of the box... It just gets flattened as soon as it's plugged in. Same with my home machines. I just check i can get the drivers for the chosen OS, stick the disk in and flatten it. I've paid for an XXXGb hard drive, i'm not being cheated out out 6Gb of it because the manufacturer is too cheap to give me DVD.

[localzuk]

Full wipe and image here. No point in a recovery partition, as it doesn't do anything for us.

[Arthur]

Same as above. I wipe the drive clean as soon as the computer is out of its box. If you want to install Windows in UEFI mode or setup BitLocker, you have to anyway because these both require additional partitions of their own. The manufacturers recovery partition only gets in the way.

 

Most recovery and diagnostic tools can also be booted over the network via PXE.

[cpjitservices]

Same here - We do not keep any recovery partitions on the desktops - on the VAIO Laptops however - WE DO!

[mattianuk]

Flatten the HDDs here, straight away we image with FOG and windows 7.

[Geoff]

Flatten and reimage with my own image. Laptops I put a clonezilla partition in with the image file so it can be recovered offsite if needed.

[cpjitservices]

We use Acronis Secure Zone here for laptops.

[gshaw]

We nuke ours during the SCCM partition phase

[CyberNerd]

we do the standard reimage as well.

I would consider using the manufacturers base image (Lenovo even provide an administration tool) - if you pay for windows on a pc there is no point paying twice.

[mattianuk]

we do the standard reimage as well.

I would consider using the manufacturers base image (Lenovo even provide an administration tool) - if you pay for windows on a pc there is no point paying twice.

 

But you wouldn't pay twice, if its an OEM Pro license your covered, if its EES you would be covered as well. Cant think why you would leave any other versions on there?

[CyberNerd]

But you wouldn't pay twice, if its an OEM Pro license your covered, if its EES you would be covered as well. Cant think why you would leave any other versions on there?

 

oh - thats cool. So are you saying if I buy an OEM pro license I can re-image it with my standard image and not have to have that license in KMS?

[SYNACK]

Waste it, the vendor stuff is junk anyway. At most pull the drivers out of there if they are not avalible (in newer versions) on the vendor site anyway.

[kernewek-sam]

We wipe it then put our image on it with Ghost. The image is our recovery option. And the bloatware on some of them is terrible.

[CyberNerd]

bump a little on my offshoot question (happy to start a new thread if I'm intruding)

 

Is it possible to reconcile an OEM pre-installed license onto a KMS server if you re-image the machine with a standardised image?

I've always re-imaged here, but found I needed an additional license to the one we paid for with the equipment - which led me to thinking that tinkering with the OEM restore partition isn't such a bad idea to save on some licensing cash.

[SYNACK]

bump a little on my offshoot question (happy to start a new thread if I'm intruding)

 

Is it possible to reconcile an OEM pre-installed license onto a KMS server if you re-image the machine with a standardised image?

I've always re-imaged here, but found I needed an additional license to the one we paid for with the equipment - which led me to thinking that tinkering with the OEM restore partition isn't such a bad idea to save on some licensing cash.

I think VAMT can do this Managing Activation Using the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT)

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ff686877.aspx

 

Just buy them with pro, make a fresh install and sysprep with no key then use the tool

Edited August 22, 2012 by SYNACK

[CyberNerd]

Thats great.

Unfortunately i also found this:

OEM Specific Information:

Organizations do not have the right to reimage by using OEM media.

 

An OEM image can only be preloaded on a PC by the OEM during manufacturing. An image can be individually recovered by the organization (or a service provider they choose) by using the Recovery Media. The OEM recovery media should match the product version originally preinstalled on the system; no other image may be used to restore the system to its original state.

 

Microsoft Volume Licensing Brief - Reimaging Licensed Microsoft Software by Using Volume Licensing Media

 

Thus it seems that if you want to use your volume license image, you cannot use the OEM key - instead you must make an image of the OEM installation and re-deploy that.

So keeping the OEM install, and recovery partition, still may be a good thing to do if you are not happy with paying twice for licenses.

Edited August 23, 2012 by CyberNerd

[Steve21]

Thats great.

Unfortunately i also found this:

 

 

Microsoft Volume Licensing Brief - Reimaging Licensed Microsoft Software by Using Volume Licensing Media

 

Thus it seems that if you want to use your volume license image, you cannot use the OEM key - instead you must make an image of the OEM installation and re-deploy that.

So keeping the OEM install, and recovery partition, still may be a good thing to do if you are not happy with paying twice for licenses.

 

Why would you ever want to return it to it's "original state" though? Don't you install your own images over it normally?

 

Steve

[SYNACK]

Thats great.

Unfortunately i also found this:

 

 

Microsoft Volume Licensing Brief - Reimaging Licensed Microsoft Software by Using Volume Licensing Media

 

Thus it seems that if you want to use your volume license image, you cannot use the OEM key - instead you must make an image of the OEM installation and re-deploy that.

So keeping the OEM install, and recovery partition, still may be a good thing to do if you are not happy with paying twice for licenses.

 

I read that as you can't use VL media with OEM codes, I'd do a fresh reinstall using retail media and sysprep that then use the individual keys. It does not allow the use of Enterprise but should manage Pro. I don't think MS would sting you for it though as even they don't understand their licencing.

 

Personally I don't find the VL stuff to be double dipping as you are paying for all the upgrades in the period and the Enterprise version upgrade. We go for home licences on the box which are cheaper and use VL to top it up to enterprise. This would not work for a corp as they changed it but it still works for schools. We have machines that came with XP that hum along with 7 just fine which we could not do without VL.

[sonofsanta]

oh - thats cool. So are you saying if I buy an OEM pro license I can re-image it with my standard image and not have to have that license in KMS?

 

You get the OEM license to cover the terms of the licence and nothing more. 'Tis just a pretty sticker on the box for children to piggle at when they're having an off day and don't fancy doing any work.

[CyberNerd]

I read that as you can't use VL media with OEM codes, I'd do a fresh reinstall using retail media and sysprep that then use the individual keys. It does not allow the use of Enterprise but should manage Pro. I don't think MS would sting you for it though as even they don't understand their licencing.

 

yes. that seems to be the way forward.

I only have a limited number of Volume Licensing keys for Windows7 and it would be a waste to buy more as we have already paid for it.