What is your favorite imaging tool?

Im about to order 60 new W7 machines, and though they come with the OS installed...i strip out the HP bloat, and install a number of our own apps. With windows updates it takes a few hours.

Anywho, i typically only do one at a time here and there as needed...but now we're going to replace about half our machines with new ones. The last time i looked (like 6 years ago) - Norton Ghost was a tool that could be used to image and build machines.

Before I go googling and reading reviews, do any of you have a favorite app for this purpose? I'd like to get one box set, image it, and deploy that image to the rest (i'll have to change the IP/cname - no dhcp here).

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Comments

Claymoore

The native Windows technologies are the best deployment tools out there. Imagex, Windows Deployment Services, and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit are all free. You can do just about anything with MDT that you can do with SCCM but SCCM scales better. The tools do have a bit of a learning curve, but once you start using them you won't want to use anything else.

No DHCP? Really? Good news is MDT has a gather network settings task that allows you to restore the network config so you won't have to manually set the address.

brad-

Claymoore wrote: »

No DHCP? Really?

its a real pain. Our offices were initially set up with an AIX server and 4GL applications that required to know the host IP's, so everything is static.

Dakinggamer87

I started using Norton Ghost but now I primarily use Microsoft Deployment Toolkit for imaging several machines.

kriscamaro68

If you want to make it easier on yourself us gimagex instead of imagex since gimagex is the gui version. I also agree with everyone else use Microsoft technologies.

Everyone

I'll throw in another vote for WDS. Ghost still gets the job done though.

MrAgent

Ive only ever used ghost for imaging.

jibbajabba

Acronis ..

zaxbysauce

I use ghost on a daily basis for EUD's, and Acronis for servers.

xenodamus

Another vote for WDS/MDT.

Although, if you're equipment refresh is a one time event every 5 years it may be easier to use something like ghost. The new microsoft deployment tools will do anything and everything you can imagine, though.

mctwist

We were using an old version of Drive image (Powerquest) here for a long time. But with our newer computers, it wouldn't recognize drives bigger than 120GB (or was it 160GB?).

Anyway, we deploy about 200 computers per year, so we've started using Clonezilla for now. Works great, it's fast. And best of all, free.

[Deleted User]

Claymoore wrote: »

The native Windows technologies are the best deployment tools out there. Imagex, Windows Deployment Services, and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit are all free. You can do just about anything with MDT that you can do with SCCM but SCCM scales better. The tools do have a bit of a learning curve, but once you start using them you won't want to use anything else.

No DHCP? Really? Good news is MDT has a gather network settings task that allows you to restore the network config so you won't have to manually set the address.

This! You can use just the MDT to deploy an OS. I've just started digging into the MDT and I really like it. You don't even have to have a domain setup to use MDT like you do with WDS. I really hope that I get the opportunity to work with WDS/SCCM In the future. Microsoft has done a really great job with their deployment tools. If you are interested in MDT check out this video series, there is a lot of good info in there.

Deployment Research > Videos

SteveLord

Claymoore wrote: »

The tools do have a bit of a learning curve, but once you start using them you won't want to use anything else.

Happen to know a good book for learning this? I might explore this.

Stiltz79

WDS/MDT gets my vote. We have a full setup here for doing migrations. It saves all of our user information and configurations, installs the new OS and then puts all of the information back.

For DHCP, you couldtemporarily use something MagikDHCP to get you through the deployment.

[Deleted User]

SteveLord wrote: »

Happen to know a good book for learning this? I might explore this.

I don't know of any specific book so I would definitely be interested in that. Here are some of the resources that I've been using to learn:

How to run a Sysprep and Capture Task Sequence From MDT 2010 - Ask the Core Team - Site Home - TechNet Blogs - This one was helpful for when I was looking at how to capture an image.

The D-Spot (The Deployment Spot) - Yeah, yeah, I know.

Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - PoC Jumpstart - Corresponds with a video from TechEd 2011.. let me see if I can track that down

Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1 - There's some documentation that comes with MDT

Claymoore

SteveLord wrote: »

Happen to know a good book for learning this? I might explore this.

The free Deployment CD from the guys at TrueSec is a great place to start:
TrueSec / Deployment CD

The print-ready documentation from the MDT 2010 is the best documentation from MS:
Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1

There are more links and videos over in the 681 Resource Guide in the Win7 forums.

Once you start using a task-based thin image deployment, you won't want to go back to disk-image based thick images. The deployment itself takes longer, but you never have to crack and repack the image because you need to add new drivers or update an application.

SteveLord

I bought Acronis Snap Deploy 3 last year, but the server it was to be put on....is only starting to be used now. On the fence whether to mess with that or Microsoft. Whichever is easier.

phonetic.man

SteveLord wrote: »

Happen to know a good book for learning this? I might explore this.

You might try this out. I used at work and while I was studying for the 680 test.

Amazon.com: Mastering Windows 7 Deployment : Aidan Finn, Darril Gibson, Kenneth van Surksum: Books

There is a kindle version too ($18 plus tax)