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Hi all,
I have a question. In my group of friends, I am the techie and always have to fix/help people with thier computers. These days with more and more viruses/spyware, people are asking me to format their computer and re-install everything. This does take a lot of time. My question is, is there a way to have like a ghost image of Windows XP, with everything I want installed on it (i.e. Office, Winzip, Winamp, DVD software, CDRW software, etc.)? Basically I was thinking, if I were to create a partition on my computer as though I was installing it fresh on a friends computer, and then after all the windows updates, installations, etc., I could use a program like ghost to create an image on CDRs. Then I could just take the CDRs to other people, format their computer, and then place the images back onto thier hard drives. The major problem I am thinking about, is the hardware detection. As windows installs, it detects all the hardware and installs known drivers for them. Now is there a way to have windows redetect all hardware on next reboot or something. If so, then I can choose that, shut down the computer and create the image, then whenever I put it onto someone elses computer, as soon as they boot it, windows will detect all their hardware. Is this possible? Are there any other forseeable problems with anything? Suggestions? Thanks.
SuperG
I have a question. In my group of friends, I am the techie and always have to fix/help people with thier computers. These days with more and more viruses/spyware, people are asking me to format their computer and re-install everything. This does take a lot of time. My question is, is there a way to have like a ghost image of Windows XP, with everything I want installed on it (i.e. Office, Winzip, Winamp, DVD software, CDRW software, etc.)? Basically I was thinking, if I were to create a partition on my computer as though I was installing it fresh on a friends computer, and then after all the windows updates, installations, etc., I could use a program like ghost to create an image on CDRs. Then I could just take the CDRs to other people, format their computer, and then place the images back onto thier hard drives. The major problem I am thinking about, is the hardware detection. As windows installs, it detects all the hardware and installs known drivers for them. Now is there a way to have windows redetect all hardware on next reboot or something. If so, then I can choose that, shut down the computer and create the image, then whenever I put it onto someone elses computer, as soon as they boot it, windows will detect all their hardware. Is this possible? Are there any other forseeable problems with anything? Suggestions? Thanks.
SuperG
