Deployment Best Practice

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brian
  • Start date Start date
B

Brian

We have purchased 39 new PCs from Dell. I am trying to figure out the best
way to get them set up. They all have windows XP and Office basic installed,
but I have other software I need to install on them as well.

So, rather than install each piece of software on each PC, I think it would
be faster to set up one and ghost it to the rest, then join them to our 2003
domain. How would this affect windows and office activation (or does it have
activation, since its OEM)? Would having the same product key on all the PCs
cause any problems?

In case anyone suggest this, I cannot deploy the software using GPO. It
won't work with our main software application.

Thanks
Brian
 
Deploying Windows XP Part I: Planning
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/depovg/depxpi.mspx

Preserving OEM Pre-Activation when Re-installing Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/oempreac.mspx

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| We have purchased 39 new PCs from Dell. I am trying to figure out the best
| way to get them set up. They all have windows XP and Office basic installed,
| but I have other software I need to install on them as well.
|
| So, rather than install each piece of software on each PC, I think it would
| be faster to set up one and ghost it to the rest, then join them to our 2003
| domain. How would this affect windows and office activation (or does it have
| activation, since its OEM)? Would having the same product key on all the PCs
| cause any problems?
|
| In case anyone suggest this, I cannot deploy the software using GPO. It
| won't work with our main software application.
|
| Thanks
| Brian
 
Generally corporate/enterprise imaging of an OEM version of Windows is a
no-go. Causes licensing problems and will leave you in an unsupported la-la
land... If you have Volume License media, use that. Create an initial image,
including Windows, office, and any other applications you need. Sysprep it,
Ghost it (or whatever imaging tool you want) and you should be good to go.
 
Microsoft always says OEM PCs are pre-activated, but in fact OEMs use keys
that do not need activation. Your original DELL PCs must have the same
product key, and there are no problems at all.
That whitepaper simply gave you an OEM product key that does not need
activation. You can use the key to do sysprep or manual install. There is
nothing to do with preserving OEM pre-activation.
 
Hi,

In the case of a volume license customer, is the volume license media
any different to the retail media, or is it simply that a different
PIDKey is used during setup, and at that point the install becomes a
"volume license" install?
 
Hi Brian,

I think it's a good question. We also buy a lot of Dell boxes and the
first thing I do is FDISK them using FreeDOS scripting, and build from
scratch, but currently with Windows 2000 where activation is not an
issue. (I'm on volume licensing). I can't stand Dell default build or
anything to do with toy-town XP. I'm evaluating Longhorn for our next
deployment.

As you said in your post, I find it much quicker and easier to support
PCs I've build from scratch, rather than battling with Dell's build.
It's also much quicker to fix if someone's hard drive crashes.

I don't use imaging because differing hardware can be a problem, instead
I build over the network which has a repository of drivers for each Dell
model we support.
 
Back
Top