[SoCoSA/discuss] Replicating a Win XP install to other computers

[Eric Eisenhart]

On Sat, May 27, 2006 at 04:46:12PM -0700, Andrew wrote:
> clone user accounts when it does the rest of the system. Nor had
> I ever heard of ghostwalker before. Useful stuff to file away in

So, I couldn't remember the name of it until now, but the other thing to
file away is "sysprep".  

That's actually from MS and I think originally designed for OEMs.  You can
even test out sysprep without ghost.  You run it on the system that's going
to be imaged, it shuts down the system for you (maybe that's an option) and
when you start the system up again (or the same image on another system) it
goes though a lot of the steps you'd normally have during an install.  The
big advantage over ghostwalker is that you can use one image for a bunch of
different hardware configurations.  I think it's possible to have it ask for
the system to be named and whatnot, too.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302577

I don't know details, but I hear ghost has the ability to push out software
installs and updates without reimaging systems.  Even if somebody else is
going to image the systems for you, you might eventually end up needing to
image them again as new software needs to be pushed out, etc...  Or there's
the SUS server stuff...
-- 
Eric Eisenhart <freiheit at SoCoSA.org>
SoCoSA Founder and President
IRC: freiheit on irc.socosa.org
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