How to Image a Windows system
- Thread starter Evoss
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Soldato
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yeah use something like acronis. I will say though that if you don't run sysprep all the systems will have the same SID and will likely cause you major issues connecting to domain, authenticating and having roaming profiles.
This. although i would have used clonezilla.
do one clone of it 'as is' then run sysprep to remove sid's and whatnot, then clone again.
Once that's done you can use the 2nd clone for the other laptops and the first clone to undo the changes sysprep did.
job done
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In addition to the tools mentioned here, you also might want to take a look at and consider using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) for both the imaging process as well as the deployment process. First off, MDT is completely free. MDT can integrate directly with Windows Deployment Services (WDS) and can be setup to PXE boot for both a Sysprep and Capture task sequence and lite-touch deployment. Alternatively, you can also use MDT to create a bootable USB drive with a prepared image. Personally, MDT is very simple to use and I would argue that there isn’t as much of a learning curve with it as there are with other tools.
You can push out images of Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008R2 all through the use of one very simply laid out console. With MDT, you can add applications, drivers, manage Windows updates, create task sequences, prompt for a computer name, join a domain, add a KMS or MAK product key, create an administrator account, specify time zone, etc. You can also import all user data into the new environment using the User State Migration Tool (which is also free). In addition to creating standard client task sequences, as stated above, you can create sysprep and capture task sequences that will do just that – sysprep and capture an image of your reference machine. To learn more about MDT and to see demonstrations of the ease of use, I strongly recommend you watch the following videos from the Springboard Series page on TechNet:
Deployment Day Session 1: Introduction to MDT 2012
Deployment Day Session 2: MDT 2012 Advanced
Keep us posted on your progress and which direction you choose to go!
Jessica
Windows Outreach Team – IT Pro
You can push out images of Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008R2 all through the use of one very simply laid out console. With MDT, you can add applications, drivers, manage Windows updates, create task sequences, prompt for a computer name, join a domain, add a KMS or MAK product key, create an administrator account, specify time zone, etc. You can also import all user data into the new environment using the User State Migration Tool (which is also free). In addition to creating standard client task sequences, as stated above, you can create sysprep and capture task sequences that will do just that – sysprep and capture an image of your reference machine. To learn more about MDT and to see demonstrations of the ease of use, I strongly recommend you watch the following videos from the Springboard Series page on TechNet:
Deployment Day Session 1: Introduction to MDT 2012
Deployment Day Session 2: MDT 2012 Advanced
Keep us posted on your progress and which direction you choose to go!
Jessica
Windows Outreach Team – IT Pro
