Currently our company builds a custom image and runs sysprep and uploads our image to the ghost server for imaging computers. This works great except for changing some of the settings within internet explorer and some other programs and settings within windows. What is another way that we can accomplish this imaging process with being able to use our ghost server? We image many computers (desktop and laptop) and I am looking for the most effecient and cost effective way. Any suggestions?
imaging process
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Lexluethar
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SCCM but it's not cheap.
SCCM is great but like Lex said, not cheap.
Maybe look into FOG to see if it's anything that would work with your setup?
Most use SCCM or Ghost. The school I work(ed) for uses Ghost, and the other company I work for uses SCCM.
FOG = Free Opensource Ghost.
fogproject.org
Similar to Ghost except that it's free.
Rockrz
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Tried Acronis True Image yet?
Rockrz
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Acronis will... when I make changes and take an image... those changes are a permanent part of the image.
I've used Acronis for about 7 years and it has never once failed to restore with perfection.
I've used Acronis for about 7 years and it has never once failed to restore with perfection.
Jayce
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At my last job (school district) we used FOG. Our environment was entirely Windows XP with about 2,000 systems. I tried the whole sysprep thing, but I found it to be quite unpredictable, so I stopped trusting it. I ended up favoring just setting up one image per system build, which worked out okay in my case because we bought systems in massive flocks, so I only had a few images around even though we had 2,000 systems.
My boss at the time was hesitant to trust Linux so he sent me to a Microsoft conference to see a demo on whatever imaging functions Server 2008 contained, since some people at the time were raving about how nice it is to have integrated imaging to your server. Ironically, it crashed during the presentation, so FOG ran the show and still does even though I've been out of there for a year or two. FOG is Linux based, free, open source, aka awesome. It works predictably well and requires minimal terminal work to get rolling. It's become quite the standard when it comes to school districts since it's a low cost way to get a massive amount of systems imaged - my current district I'm working for uses it as well as the next neighboring district to our north.
I'd be giving that a shot to see if it works for your particular environment before I'd invest money into proprietary solutions.
My boss at the time was hesitant to trust Linux so he sent me to a Microsoft conference to see a demo on whatever imaging functions Server 2008 contained, since some people at the time were raving about how nice it is to have integrated imaging to your server. Ironically, it crashed during the presentation, so FOG ran the show and still does even though I've been out of there for a year or two. FOG is Linux based, free, open source, aka awesome. It works predictably well and requires minimal terminal work to get rolling. It's become quite the standard when it comes to school districts since it's a low cost way to get a massive amount of systems imaged - my current district I'm working for uses it as well as the next neighboring district to our north.
I'd be giving that a shot to see if it works for your particular environment before I'd invest money into proprietary solutions.
