Imaging Server - Please HELP

[MediaInfo]

Hi Guys,

I am looking for few recommendations for a new imaging server i need to purchase to roll out Windows XP images to desktop PCs.

These PCs consists diffract HAL so RIS didn't work for me.

I have come across Acronis Deploy 3 software which should work on different hardware layers.

Can somebody suggest me if that's the best package out there or there are others to consider which might be better than Acronis?

Thank you all very much in advance.

Thanks,

Hiren

 

[compuveg]

So why's this in the Mac forum?

Use Norton/Symantec Ghost, Acronis, or whatever.

I've had good experiences with both Ghost and Acronis. I don't like that Symantex REALLY expects you to pay for a copy of it for each machine you run it on. Acronis worked well, but I couldn't get the purchase approved so once my 30 day trial was up I had to use other software.

There's a Freeware/Open Source ISO you can download and image drives with called G4U, or Ghost for Unix (don't be afraid of the alpha/beta versions, which got me over a BIOS problem on some HP dc5800's). The drawback with this one is that if you can resize the images, I don't know how. I'm sure there's a way but I didn't need to so I didn't look into it.

Whatever you use, you can then go and use SysInternals' software, NewSID, which will generate a new SID for the machine and apply it to all the security keys in the filesystem and registry. their articles will let you know that Microsoft, who now owns SysInternals, does not support any form of disk imaging. But here's their utility that they officially provide but don't support.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897418.aspx

The only time I had problems with this was with Lenovo machines which have fingerprint reading software on them for logon purposes. That package really didn't like that the machine name was different, which really isn't SID related. However, changing the machine's name back didn't make it happy, so I had too unistall and reinstall the stuff.

Pretty minor work compared to a whole new install from OS disks.

 

[MediaInfo]

Thank you compuveg. It was posted in the Mac section by a mistake.

Thanks!