Systems Deployment

We are supporting about IBM,DELL,HP and a couple other platforms, with support for notebooks as well, and loading 40 apps on a single image that is 2.5 gigs in size.

This is a for a company of 5000 users, and so far we've been exceedingly lucky, and built everything as we go. Everything we use is opensource, therefore free. We saved a few hundred thousand by not purchasing ghost or altiris. And no telling how much we saved by migrating to openoffice from MSoffice.

The things we've learned:

1. Stay away from sysprep v2, it blows.

2. Build your universal image in vmware, but do not install vmtools. We can add to the image in minutes and have a new revision in about an hour.

3. You can deploy the image with G4U/MIDS in around 4 minutes.

4. Pare down the drivers list, and be aware of any gotchas(The TPM security chipset on IBM's comes to mind).

We're actually moving back to less applications on the image and having our post run script call menus to install anything else. We use autohotkey to build mini menus and they are very quick on the network.

SyS, cat and inf should be enough for each device. Depending on how many models you support, try to grab the latest for each and test the hell out of it on each required hardware type before deploying.

J

Hi Guys
links seem to moved ...[:(]

Dubzaddict, are you looking for a guide document?

Hi DT
thanx for the response
Yes I am in need of any material that can educate/assist me with packaging/imaging applications.
I have downloaded all your videos and the a great help..any formal education is not an option at the moment as the finances is nonexitant if i could say that...
BTW..awesome site[:D]

Hey Dubz,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

have a look here:
http://www.deploytech.co.nz/docs/hardwareindependent.pdf

It's not quite finished, but covers off the main pints (except hal swapping, which is coming).

Cheers

Thanks for the post. Kind of leary about altering the registry through, that usually causes problems in the long run. I use the Multiple PC Image software myself, as it is much easier to use.

[link]http://www.multipcimage.com[/link]

Great stuff. I was always wondering how well that registry mod would work. Its used at my workplace wiht 800 PCs supporting 15 models. So far dream breeze with imaging.

Thanks TNguyen81. I am currently using the multipcimage to support 1000 PC's / 14 different models with 1 single image as well. Takes about 30 minutes or less to update the image, so I update it each month. Cool.