Fresh Image for office machines

[wavewerx]

I'm trying to setup an image i can use on all our machines at work. My problem is I don't know how to go about doing this - Norton Ghost? or something better? - and I'm not sure how to change the Product keys for software - OS, Office, productivity suites.

How do y'all go about doing this?

 

[TehJams]

I'm trying to setup an image i can use on all our machines at work. My problem is I don't know how to go about doing this - Norton Ghost? or something better?

I am just about to embark on a similar project for my job. We ordered 25 computers and I am going to figure out how to image one so I can deploy the same stuff to the rest of them. I found Acronis Snap Deploy 3 ($25 or so for license) and I am going to be trying it out within the next week.

- and I'm not sure how to change the Product keys for software - OS, Office, productivity suites.

How do y'all go about doing this?

I am also curious about this. Since the computers currently have an OEM key installed, do I need to worry about changing the keys when I get the image deployed to all the computers? We have WinXP licenses I can use if need be, but can I change the key in a current install?

 

[Demon10000]

First thing: don't use the image that comes with the computer. Scrap it. It's going to cause you problems becuase no OEM vendor sells a clean PC.

I recommend using Windows Deployment Services for a small shop. Really, a large shop can tage advantage too, but there are some bigger tools out there like SSCM.

So, to use WDS, you're basically going to set up WDS and get it to PXE boot on the network. Then you install Windows XP and get it the way you want. Using the deployment tools, you sysprep WinXP with the reseal option and tell it to shut down. When it shuts down, you turn it back on and PXE boot (make sure you're booting to the network, and not to the hard disk). One of your options with WDS is to capture an image -- choose that one. It will capture the image of your workstaiton.

You can then import it to WDS and then deploy it to any machine you want.


This is a very high level overview, but it isn't too terribly difficult. Microsoft has plenty of good documentation on how to do this, and there is a ton of information available on the web. For reference, you can treat XP like it was Windows Server 2003 -- most of the options are identical, and you may find more information available looking for server...

You could also build a PE disk and create an unattended installation to do this. I'm a bigger fan of this method, but "the industry" has gone the way of sysprep.

 

[wavewerx]

Thanks Demon10000! I'll be looking into this over the next few days. So far looking at all the documentation it looks real nice and exactly what I'm looking for

 

[ciggwin]

Going off of the OP... as far as Office installations, from what I have seen, if you don't have a corporate key that you use on all your machines you can't install this on the image?

Here at my company we have individual Office 2007 keys for everybody... how does this work with Windows Deployment Services?

 

[ZzBloopzZ]

In terms of Office 2007 keys. Have it fully installed on the source machine/image. Then on the other machines you will have to remove the key via registry, then open Word and it will ask to enter the new key.

Here is a quick guide on changing office 2003/2007 keys: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...roduct-license-key-or-volume-license-key-vlk/

For Windows XP, I THINK if you don't activate it on the source computer and make a image, when it asks for activation on the other computers you can select change product key and type the new key. If that does not work then you will have to hit activate, and activation will fail since key is already activated on the other machine and then the 'change product key' button should appear.

 

[ciggwin]

In terms of Office 2007 keys. Have it fully installed on the source machine/image. Then on the other machines you will have to remove the key via registry, then open Word and it will ask to enter the new key.

Here is a quick guide on changing office 2003/2007 keys: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...roduct-license-key-or-volume-license-key-vlk/

For Windows XP, I THINK if you don't activate it on the source computer and make a image, when it asks for activation on the other computers you can select change product key and type the new key. If that does not work then you will have to hit activate, and activation will fail since key is already activated on the other machine and then the 'change product key' button should appear.

Will be trying this out - thanks a lot