Vista imaging with ghost

[Guest]

We use Ghost to deploy our images. I was wondering if there is a way to
create the image without the activation timer running. We deploy across many
different computers and don't want to have to pull the image down every 30
days and rearm it. So basically we want the timer to start running only after
we pull the image down. We are using KMS licensing if that helps any. Thanks.

Brian

 

[Carl Farrington]

We use Ghost to deploy our images. I was wondering if there is a way to
create the image without the activation timer running. We deploy across
many
different computers and don't want to have to pull the image down every 30
days and rearm it. So basically we want the timer to start running only
after
we pull the image down. We are using KMS licensing if that helps any.
Thanks.

Brian

I'm afraid I know nothing about KMS, but are you sysprep-ing properly?

 

[Guest]

Hey Carl,

We were trying to not use sysprep because using sysprep takes too long with
the way we have to set things up. It take 15 minutes per computer when we run
sysprep and then our Scripts. We have over 6000 laptops on campus that we
will eventually have to update with vista. I am just trying to find a faster
way than sysprep.

 

[Carl Farrington]

Hey Carl,

We were trying to not use sysprep because using sysprep takes too long
with
the way we have to set things up. It take 15 minutes per computer when we
run
sysprep and then our Scripts. We have over 6000 laptops on campus that we
will eventually have to update with vista. I am just trying to find a
faster
way than sysprep.

Ah, fair enough. Do you use something like NewSID then or are duplicate SIDs
not a problem?

 

[Seth]

Hey Carl,

We were trying to not use sysprep because using sysprep takes too long
with
the way we have to set things up. It take 15 minutes per computer when we
run
sysprep and then our Scripts. We have over 6000 laptops on campus that we
will eventually have to update with vista. I am just trying to find a
faster
way than sysprep.

Unless all the machines are the same hardware, you really do want to use
Sysprep.

Sysprep, in addition to preparing the machine to be deployed to multiple
hardware platforms, also resets the SID as well as after mini-setup runs
(the process that runs on first boot after bringing down a Syspreped image)
you will have the 30 days to activate (although the reminder bubble says 3).

I am using a syspreped image to deploy to 120,000 machines and my image file
(I'm using ImageX which, in my opinion, is thus far superior to Ghost) is
over 3 months old (dated 1-August-2007).

 

[copelanb]

Unless all the machines are the same hardware, you really do want to use
Sysprep.

Sysprep, in addition to preparing the machine to be deployed to multiple
hardware platforms, also resets the SID as well as after mini-setup runs
(the process that runs on first boot after bringing down a Syspreped image)
you will have the 30 days to activate (although the reminder bubble says 3).

I am using a syspreped image to deploy to 120,000 machines and my image file
(I'm using ImageX which, in my opinion, is thus far superior to Ghost) is
over 3 months old (dated 1-August-2007).

ImageX ? i am trying that now and so far i am not very happy with it,
the documentation that i am finding is not very good , do you have any
better doc's?

 

[Seth]

ImageX ? i am trying that now and so far i am not very happy with it,
the documentation that i am finding is not very good , do you have any
better doc's?

imagex.exe /? is all I've needed thus far.

What issues are you having?

 

[Brian]

Thanks for the response Seth. Here's another reason why we don't want to use
sysprep. We currently image the computer by putting the user profile
directory on a different partition of the hard drive. This makes it much
easier for us to re-image students' system drives and not have to worry about
backing up all their data.

With sysprep if you try to re-image just the system drive it creates a user
profile on the sytem drive\or gets rid of the users data on the different
partition to recreate their user profile. It's a pain.

How do you go about re-imaging and saving user documents?

 

[Seth]

Thanks for the response Seth. Here's another reason why we don't want to
use
sysprep. We currently image the computer by putting the user profile
directory on a different partition of the hard drive. This makes it much
easier for us to re-image students' system drives and not have to worry
about
backing up all their data.

Can still be done with SYSPREP. By not using SYSPREP you can expect to
receive problems with drivers and stability if deploying the image to
different hardware. Also, without SYSPREP you will need some 3rd party SID
tools so all the machines are unique.

With sysprep if you try to re-image just the system drive it creates a
user
profile on the sytem drive\or gets rid of the users data on the different
partition to recreate their user profile. It's a pain.

How do you go about re-imaging and saving user documents?

The same way you are now. Once the machine is built you can still re-direct
the profiles to a different drive. Just "hide" the profile tree on the
other drive during the build process until you are ready to tell the system
it's been redirected.