Windows 7 System Imaging

[Keith Nelson]

I have an entire lab of identical hardware machines that I would like to image from a new Windows 7 install.  Can people let me know what process they are using, pitfalls, etc.  I do not have any windows imaging software at the moment so now is a good time to get something that will work if needed.

 

Thanks

Keith Nelson

Warroad Public Schools

[Brian Norman]

You can do it for free using WDS in Windows server. I'm imaging my XP machines using it now. I'm working on the Win7 process. It is more complicated... of course.

[Stephen Lien]

I've been using Ghost for years. Maybe there's other products out there that also work, but I've never had an issue w/ Ghost.

On a side note, I've always been using it w/ a boot disk...I've never used the Enterprise deployment option (where you have a GhostCast server, and every computer client has a sentinel program that communicates w/ the server, allowing you to deploy a new image to the client from the server). There is always the hassle of having to download an obscure network driver and add it to the WinPE boot disk package. Plus, I much preferred the days of DOS where my boot CD loaded in about 1/4 the time. But, deployment has always been solid.

[Brian Norman]

That's exactly what I've done until now. Once I realized all of our computers can PXE boot and load the image from there, it made imaging soooo much easier. I still use different images for different models of computers. I probably don't have to, but that's my old school ghost experience pushing me to do it that way.

Stephen Lien said:

I've been using Ghost for years. Maybe there's other products out there that also work, but I've never had an issue w/ Ghost.

On a side note, I've always been using it w/ a boot disk...I've never used the Enterprise deployment option (where you have a GhostCast server, and every computer client has a sentinel program that communicates w/ the server, allowing you to deploy a new image to the client from the server). There is always the hassle of having to download an obscure network driver and add it to the WinPE boot disk package. Plus, I much preferred the days of DOS where my boot CD loaded in about 1/4 the time. But, deployment has always been solid.

[Keith Nelson]

I have tried ghost , just like I have done with XP images in the past and I get an error that the system cannot start and I should launch repair from the install disk. When I do that it says it is unable to fix the installation. So I seem to be getting nowhere.

Stephen Lien said:

I've been using Ghost for years. Maybe there's other products out there that also work, but I've never had an issue w/ Ghost.

On a side note, I've always been using it w/ a boot disk...I've never used the Enterprise deployment option (where you have a GhostCast server, and every computer client has a sentinel program that communicates w/ the server, allowing you to deploy a new image to the client from the server). There is always the hassle of having to download an obscure network driver and add it to the WinPE boot disk package. Plus, I much preferred the days of DOS where my boot CD loaded in about 1/4 the time. But, deployment has always been solid.

[Brian Norman]

Did you do the new sysprep procedure before creating the image?

Keith Nelson said:

I have tried ghost , just like I have done with XP images in the past and I get an error that the system cannot start and I should launch repair from the install disk. When I do that it says it is unable to fix the installation. So I seem to be getting nowhere.

Stephen Lien said:

I've been using Ghost for years. Maybe there's other products out there that also work, but I've never had an issue w/ Ghost.

On a side note, I've always been using it w/ a boot disk...I've never used the Enterprise deployment option (where you have a GhostCast server, and every computer client has a sentinel program that communicates w/ the server, allowing you to deploy a new image to the client from the server). There is always the hassle of having to download an obscure network driver and add it to the WinPE boot disk package. Plus, I much preferred the days of DOS where my boot CD loaded in about 1/4 the time. But, deployment has always been solid.

[Keith Nelson]

Yes

Brian Norman said:

Did you do the new sysprep procedure before creating the image?

Keith Nelson said:

I have tried ghost , just like I have done with XP images in the past and I get an error that the system cannot start and I should launch repair from the install disk. When I do that it says it is unable to fix the installation. So I seem to be getting nowhere.

Stephen Lien said:

I've been using Ghost for years. Maybe there's other products out there that also work, but I've never had an issue w/ Ghost.

On a side note, I've always been using it w/ a boot disk...I've never used the Enterprise deployment option (where you have a GhostCast server, and every computer client has a sentinel program that communicates w/ the server, allowing you to deploy a new image to the client from the server). There is always the hassle of having to download an obscure network driver and add it to the WinPE boot disk package. Plus, I much preferred the days of DOS where my boot CD loaded in about 1/4 the time. But, deployment has always been solid.

[Stephen Lien]

I was planning to deploy Windows 7 this summer on our staff computers (just got new Quad Cores), but I have yet to play around with it & see how it works with Ghost. Until then, I don't have much else to help you with.

Just out of curiosity, which version of Ghost are you using?