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Hi All
Never had to prepare 14 PC's all at once.
Will be getting 14 brand new Dell desktop PC's. All will have XP Pro w/ SP2 installed already. What I'd like to do is to remove all of the junk apps that dell puts on and then install necessary apps. Make an image of that drive, then take that image, less SID and copy it to a network share. Then use utility X to copy that image to the other 13 PC's.
I could use the SysPrep tool to do this, but is there a program that is more user friendly? As I've never done this, the easier the better. Wizards galore.
So if you can recommend something, please do.
The problem with Ghost in this case is that XP probably won't allow image cloning to 14 different PCs.
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Well I'm not cloning them all at once, like 14 in one day. Maybe 5-8 per day if I can.
And does Norton Ghost limit how many images it will write to destination computers? I mean, does the program cap your usage at 10 'writes' to destination PC's?
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The XP OS is limited to one install per machine. I don't know if you can clone the C: drive to 13 computers.
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I think you can, do u have a volume licence key for all the computers?
we just got 9 new ibms, and we made an image with ghost then put them on the other 8,
but unless u have like winxp corprate edditon u will most likley need to change all the product keys once there image, or you wont be able to updatedont quote me on that tho
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we reimage 30 or so computers at a time using ghost console and it takes about 30 minutes once the clean image is set to the server.
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First, set one pc up with apps and updates that you would like to have.
Run sysprep, that's a tool you can find in XP cd. There you will create an answer file with all the necessary info like the name of the company, admin password and so forth. Also, in the answer file you can have the option to setup image to aske for Product key after each indivudal installation or if you have a volume license key, you can have that in the answer file so you don't have to do that for each box. Also, make sure you consider SID.
Now use ghost to create a bootable image. If the image is larger than 600 mb, you in split it up.( I always use original XP cd to create images, we have a volume license key, but to create an image from an OEM image, I don't know how that will work).
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Hi could you not use Casper XP
that clones my HDD and will run independant to my first hard drive.
You would prob have to pay bigger licenseit works well for me???
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Set the master system up just as you want it.
then you need to run Regedit and Delete the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion Product key (this is the cd key entered) and also HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion Registered Owner (If you want each system to be assigned to one user)Please NOTE those are the keys in a 98 system which is all I have available in front of me, I assume the keys are similar in XP
Then clone the drive to an image using Ghost or Similar.
Write the image to the other systems
When rebooting they will now ask for a username and product key to be entered enabling you to have 1 license per machine and each unique. You WILL need 1 licence per machine unless you have a corporate copy of The O/S or other multiple licence agreement.
You will need something like NEWSID or GHOSTWALKER to change SIDS
For the belt and braces principle, clone the master system *before* you delete the keys.
delete the keys on the master system,reboot it, and see if the suggestion works. If it does then just delete the keys again, then clone the system to an image, write the image to the other system, reboot and enter the relevant cd key and user info and run newsid/ghostwalker
Its what we used to do at a place i worked and it works well
HTHWoof
Curiosity may have killed the cat but at least the cat wasn`t bored
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