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Best imaging software

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blackbeaSSt

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looking for a good imaging program that we can use here in the office so we don't have to farkin manually load 20 programs per pc.

we have about 5 levels of pc's that we roll out all with their own set of software. all come preloaded with win7 from dell.

basically im looking to find some software that i can set up said 5 machines, create 5 images, and then load said image onto a new system when the time is needed and let it do its thing whilst i work on other stuff.

do i need to stick with acronis and be done? or is there another viable option?
 
Acronis works well. You can find other options by searching the General Software forum for the word "imaging".
 
yeah i searched around but didn't see anyone looking to make more then a image of their personal system. would we need to buy 5 licenses to install on the 5 different levels of pc's we have? or how does the licensing work?
 
Dell's Windows keys do not allow for you to run sysprep on the machines, at least that is my experience.

Depending now many of these machines you have over time and what type of licensing you use a windows deployment server would be the best option. But if this is just a 5 off thing I normally set all 5 up in one place and load all the programs manually, it doesn't take that long. But if you will have 100 PC's, then take the time to make a deployment server.
 
k1pp3r said:
Dell's Windows keys do not allow for you to run sysprep on the machines, at least that is my experience.

Depending now many of these machines you have over time and what type of licensing you use a windows deployment server would be the best option. But if this is just a 5 off thing I normally set all 5 up in one place and load all the programs manually, it doesn't take that long. But if you will have 100 PC's, then take the time to make a deployment server.
Click to expand...

nah it won't be a 5 and done sorta thing. we just have 5 levels of pc's that we deploy as far as software goes.

i work in a financial institution so we have pc's for tellers that require the minimum software. then we have customer service (opens accounts, etc.) that require a little more software. then we have management, so forth and so on.

we also replace about 1/3 of our inventory per year which equates to about 50 odd systems per year.

instead of manually setting up all thoses systems with software, we're looking at the image route so we can start the image leave it till its done.
 
Your need of just deploying images is not unique, and Acronis does offer some options; I just can't find a succinct page on their site that spells it all out for this. Also ask them about their "server" product line, as that exposes some extra automation options -- domain joining, some baselining tasks, etc. Ultimately, I suggest calling Acronis and talking with them about the possible options. Though I am interested in what they say and what path you decide on going with.

And inline with k1pp3r's comment, I'll assume that you will have your own (volume?) Windows license on the source image deployed to the hardware.
 
thanks ptnl. i'll check with acronis and see what they suggest.

as far as volume licensing, i don't think we have one for windows. we order the pc's with windows already on it. we are just looking at imaging the software after we boot in to windows.
 
If you're not using VLM, you're actually not licensed to image and deploy the desktop operating system. You need to actually have an MDOP licenses to do that. Even buying Acronis licenses doesn't give you the right to do that.

If you're a financial institution, I'm hoping that you have some sort of an agreement with Microsoft. I'd look into deploying with MDT, and if you have rights to it, Configuration Manager. Both have a high learning curve, but the payoff is huge.

I use configuration manager to do deployments like this. I've set up "build options" and it defines a variable in Configuration manager. As the Task Sequence executes, it checks the variable to see if it should install a certain piece of software. If it's set to true, it installs it -- if it's false, it doesn't install it. This way I have a single image for every PC in my company (about 3,000 PCs).
 
blackbeasst said:
we order the pc's with windows already on it. we are just looking at imaging the software after we boot in to windows.
Click to expand...
This changes my understanding of the problem. Follow through with Demon's comments, or find another way to do configuration-based deployments -- install scripts targeted for specific groups, bootstrapper EXE for unattended MSI installations, etc.
 
I agree with Demon10000, you should look at using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) for your imaging needs. MDT is a free deployment solution, however you do need at least one Volume License for the specific OS in order to have the rights to reimage (please see the Reimaging Rights document) and you cannot use the OEM image.

With the situation you described (we have pc's for tellers that require the minimum software. then we have customer service (opens accounts, etc.) that require a little more software. then we have management, so forth and so on.) MDT will be a perfect fit. You can keep one main image with the minimum software, and setup software groups to install the additional software depending on your departmental needs. This short video on TechNet gives a quick overview of MDT.

If want to learn more about using MDT for your deployment needs, I recommend you start with these two videos:

Deployment Day Session 1: Introduction to MDT 2012
Deployment Day Session 2: MDT 2012 Advanced

There are many more videos and articles, including walk-throughs to help with deploying Windows on the Deploy Windows 7 page of the Springboard Series on TechNet.

If you are simply looking to install software on the machines when they arrive, MDT also has a built-in task sequence called ‘Post OS Installation’ which you can use to just install software or software groups. You would not boot the machine to a Windows PE environment as you would while imaging, but instead call the LiteTouch.wsf script from within Windows to start the MDT wizard using the same method as mentioned in this ‘Ask the Core Team’ blog post about using the Sysprep and Capture task.

Hope this helps,

David
Windows Outreach Team – IT Pro
 
update.....

i found out that we do have a volume license for windows 7. not sure why, but they have just been ordering it with an OS for quicker deployment (before i started 2 months ago it was just a FT and a PT in the IT dept.)

with that said, is acronis still a good choice if we were to order the systems with no OS?
 
Acronis works well for deploying a "base" image containing the OS and applications. From your description, I could see you holding on to a few different images for each unique set of payload; just try to consolidate the number of unique images you maintain to as few as needed.
 
What do you guys prefer, MDT or WDS?

I have Volume/SA licenses (use Win 7 Ent.& 2008R2)
 
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