Need To Do Repeated Clean Installs

[David Kaufmann]

I work for a small software company. When we test our install routine,
we need to see if (1) it is installing everything needed for the
program to run and (2) to make sure our install routine does not trash
the machine.

We did this with an old Win 98 machine previously where we would first
reformat the drive, and install Windows from tape. That took about 16
minutes.

We just got a refurbished Dell XP Pro machine. Any recommendations on
how to do clean installs in a minimum amount of time? We could be
doing this upwards of 4 times a day, but not every day.

Options:

Reformat the C: drive and copy the original system back to C: via
Ghost from an external drive. (I don't see any format.exe in XP.)

Reformat the C: drive and copy the original system back to C: via
Ghost from a CD. (I don't see any format.exe in XP.)

Do a clean install from the Windows XP CD.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Dave

 

[Robert Moir]

I work for a small software company. When we test our install routine,
we need to see if (1) it is installing everything needed for the
program to run and (2) to make sure our install routine does not trash
the machine.

We did this with an old Win 98 machine previously where we would first
reformat the drive, and install Windows from tape. That took about 16
minutes.

We just got a refurbished Dell XP Pro machine. Any recommendations on
how to do clean installs in a minimum amount of time? We could be
doing this upwards of 4 times a day, but not every day.

Options:

Reformat the C: drive and copy the original system back to C: via
Ghost from an external drive. (I don't see any format.exe in XP.)

Reformat the C: drive and copy the original system back to C: via
Ghost from a CD. (I don't see any format.exe in XP.)

Pretend we're not as smart as you and explain what difference the presence
or absence of format.exe makes?

I'm not sure why you need to reformat to use ghost anyway, simply restore an
image of the partition each time, no formatting required here.

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

David Kaufmann wrote on 11-Sep-2004 4:54 PM:

I work for a small software company. When we test our install routine,
we need to see if (1) it is installing everything needed for the
program to run and (2) to make sure our install routine does not trash
the machine.

I really like BootIt Next Generation from Terabyte Unlimited. It can
copy partitions, shrink, enlarge, slide partitions, delete/create them,
and manage their appearance when you boot them. You could setup any
number of clean partitions and copy them to your test partition as
needed. www.bootitng.com. Not free, but inexpensive.

 

[David Kaufmann]

Robert,

Thank you for your reply. (If I was so smart, I wouldn't be asking for
suggestions!)

If Ghost replaces everything that is present on the C: drive with the
Ghost image, that would solve one of my problems. If I create a
folder, C:\Dave, and then restore my old Ghost image that doesn't have
C:\Dave, would C:\Dave still be present? (Maybe I should ask this on a
newsgroup that deals with Ghost.)

Dave

 

[Robert Moir]

Robert,

Thank you for your reply. (If I was so smart, I wouldn't be asking for
suggestions!)

If Ghost replaces everything that is present on the C: drive with the
Ghost image, that would solve one of my problems. If I create a
folder, C:\Dave, and then restore my old Ghost image that doesn't have
C:\Dave, would C:\Dave still be present? (Maybe I should ask this on a
newsgroup that deals with Ghost.)

The folder would go. Creating a backup image of a whole partition and then
restoring that image puts the partition back to how it was at the time the
image was taken.

 

[David Kaufmann]

Kent,

Thanks! BootIt is working great.

Dave