One image for multiple pc vendors?

Hey everyone,

My new job has me overseeing an entire office (Be it only 30 people) but the company has started doing more with imaging and I'm totally down with that. One of my side projects is creating an image for the office.

The problem I have right now we have a mix of machines. One type of Lenovo desktop and another Dell Optiplex type. Same goes with Laptops but even more mixed up from R50s, to T-60's to brand new Dell systmes.

I want to create one or two images if possible I don't want to make an image for every single version of PC we have. Is there anyway to do this? I'd love to be able to package the drivers or have the system start up and check against what it has for hardware and then check to see if the proper driver is available no matter what type of pc model.

I'd make one for laptops and one for desktops. I'm not finding anything on Google and really unsure where to start I know this can be a daunting taks and I'm sure many of us have faced it so looking for insight and a helping hand.

Thanks.

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

veritas_libertas

wweboy wrote: »

Hey everyone,

My new job has me overseeing an entire office (Be it only 30 people) but the company has started doing more with imaging and I'm totally down with that. One of my side projects is creating an image for the office.

The problem I have right now we have a mix of machines. One type of Lenovo desktop and another Dell Optiplex type. Same goes with Laptops but even more mixed up from R50s, to T-60's to brand new Dell systmes.

I want to create one or two images if possible I don't want to make an image for every single version of PC we have. Is there anyway to do this? I'd love to be able to package the drivers or have the system start up and check against what it has for hardware and then check to see if the proper driver is available no matter what type of pc model.

I'd make one for laptops and one for desktops. I'm not finding anything on Google and really unsure where to start I know this can be a daunting taks and I'm sure many of us have faced it so looking for insight and a helping hand.

Thanks.

Somewhere there is a place you can get a universal driver program for imaging with Ghost. I can't remember what the exact name is. I used it at my Community College.

brad-

Look at Symantec Backup Executive System Recovery.

It will do hardware independent backups, and physical/virtual conversion.

It has a 60 day trial if you want to d/l it.

mrmcmint

What OS are you using? if the machines are xp, you will need to create seperate images due to HAL dependance. If you are using wim files though, you could store all these images in one wim file to cut down on space?

WDS will do what you require nicely providing you have a server 2003/8 infrastructure locally available to you.

Sorry if I have the wrong end of the stick here...

wweboy

We use Acronis true image. I know snap deploy is what I coiuld use but way to much. After talking wiht some co-workers I was just told make an image for each machine and we'll just post it up when we use it. When don't do massive deployments or whatever so nothing huge or costly is needed.

Thanks.

mrmcmint

ok, if you have a server 2003/8 available on site and you can contact dns/dhcp, I would use WDS to create the pc images using litetouch. Customise and sysprep your new build, then take an image of it booting to the network to winpe. if you are using vista/windows 7 then create one image, if you are using xp you will need one per different HAL. Once the image is applied to the new pc's, use group policy to roll out the required software. the good thing is providing you have the server on site there is no cost to any of that, there really isn't much administration needed either.

- I am assuming you are using volume licensing here too...