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Worth ghosting XP for 30 pc's??
- Thread starter orman
- Start date
Worth it in my opinion. If the two sets have identical hardware, the setup will go much faster with Ghost. Installing XP and office on 30 machines would take much longer and provides a much larger chance of "forgetting" a custom setting.
Be sure to look into the SYSPREP tool before creating an image:
- Thread starter
- #4
Hi there,
just wanted to imput my opinion how my coworker did. I was wondering WHY that he does not run the sysprep too.
He created an image and put it on the server and all i need to bootup and connect to that server and flash down an image. After that i just need to rename to the computer name and join to the domain here and that's all.
I don't know this is a correct way, but they have been starting do that for 2 years and we did not have any PC issues.
My concern is that if each computer uses its own SID then we should need to run the sysprep every time we flash the image. Or i may need to run the ghost walker to change it.
just wanted to imput my opinion how my coworker did. I was wondering WHY that he does not run the sysprep too.
He created an image and put it on the server and all i need to bootup and connect to that server and flash down an image. After that i just need to rename to the computer name and join to the domain here and that's all.
I don't know this is a correct way, but they have been starting do that for 2 years and we did not have any PC issues.
My concern is that if each computer uses its own SID then we should need to run the sysprep every time we flash the image. Or i may need to run the ghost walker to change it.
There are two parts of the problem.
One is related to your time frame. A ghosted image will take something like 5 to 20 minutes to load - depending on your network - and thats including sysprep.
Altenatively a CD with an unattended installation will take 40-70 minutes to run.
If you need a "Big Bang"-roll out, it doesnt really matter which method you use.
For daily maintenance it will make a difference, but with only 30 machines I suppose you could take the time to run the unattaneded installation - after all you wont be putting a new image on your machines daily.
The second consideration is modifications to the standard installation. With both the ghosted image and the unattended CD you can add or remove components and you can add applications. You can through Sysprep or unattended.txt specify the computername and join the computer to a domain.
You can however with the ghosted image make more cosmetic changes to the default user profile.
You shouldnt worry too much about hardware. A ghosted image can be made to fit on a lot of different machines - with a few limitations.
Having said all that... with 30 machines I would recommend the unattended CD.
One is related to your time frame. A ghosted image will take something like 5 to 20 minutes to load - depending on your network - and thats including sysprep.
Altenatively a CD with an unattended installation will take 40-70 minutes to run.
If you need a "Big Bang"-roll out, it doesnt really matter which method you use.
For daily maintenance it will make a difference, but with only 30 machines I suppose you could take the time to run the unattaneded installation - after all you wont be putting a new image on your machines daily.
The second consideration is modifications to the standard installation. With both the ghosted image and the unattended CD you can add or remove components and you can add applications. You can through Sysprep or unattended.txt specify the computername and join the computer to a domain.
You can however with the ghosted image make more cosmetic changes to the default user profile.
You shouldnt worry too much about hardware. A ghosted image can be made to fit on a lot of different machines - with a few limitations.
Having said all that... with 30 machines I would recommend the unattended CD.
Try using Acronis TrueImage 6 with the Sysprep Utility from Microsoft. Thats what i use. I have used it so far on bout 72 machines without one issue. TrueImage creates your image, you can store it on DVD, Cd's, an external drive or on a server. Also, you can create a bootable cd that brings up a nice gui interface letting you point to where your image is. The sysprep utility is nice too because it genterates a SID upon bootup, thats as long as you setup the sysprep correctly. Let me know how that goes if you use that route.
--Aaron
--Aaron
Ditto to Acronis true image
seems a very robust product and I've found it much easier than Ghost,(which I also own).
although i only use it on the one machine,i have a triple booting system,and take regular images of these,which i use as a kind of "system restore" when needed.
(I can then keep the actual windows system restore turned off,which saves a bit of space).
cheers
John
seems a very robust product and I've found it much easier than Ghost,(which I also own).
although i only use it on the one machine,i have a triple booting system,and take regular images of these,which i use as a kind of "system restore" when needed.
(I can then keep the actual windows system restore turned off,which saves a bit of space).
cheers
John
- Thread starter
- #9
So here's what we did. We went with Symantec's Ghost only because True Image wasn't available through who we bought from.
Created the master and ran sysprep.
We had a new Sony DRX-530UL DVD burner that the Ghost's Dos boot disk would not reconize. Not good. Ghost uses PC Dos as default when making the DOS boot disk, but gives you the option for MS-Dos. I'll try making a boot disk with MS-Dos and see how it goes.
Mean while, it did reconize an 80Gb external Maxtor harddrive. So we put the image on that. Maxtor is a USB 1.1 and 2.0 compatable. So on our new PC's with USB 2.0, it only took 15 minutes to Ghost. But on our old PC's with 1.1 it took 1.5 hours to Ghost.
There you have it. Hopefully this will help someone else.
Created the master and ran sysprep.
We had a new Sony DRX-530UL DVD burner that the Ghost's Dos boot disk would not reconize. Not good. Ghost uses PC Dos as default when making the DOS boot disk, but gives you the option for MS-Dos. I'll try making a boot disk with MS-Dos and see how it goes.
Mean while, it did reconize an 80Gb external Maxtor harddrive. So we put the image on that. Maxtor is a USB 1.1 and 2.0 compatable. So on our new PC's with USB 2.0, it only took 15 minutes to Ghost. But on our old PC's with 1.1 it took 1.5 hours to Ghost.
There you have it. Hopefully this will help someone else.
projector1
Technical User
dam i must start searching the previous threads before i starta new one, this one answers my new thread, some good advice here
thanks posters
thanks posters
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