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65 Comments
- master_of_fm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4one good tip they didnt mention, once you have finished the image hookup the drive up as a secondary drive and to delete the pagefile.sys and hibernat.sys, can easily reduce the size of the image by a few hundred megabytes before compression
- elfjuice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I liked the "Internet Explorer not supported by this site, Download Firefox here" Nice touch.
- nmcglennon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We do this all the time at work on our college campus. We reghost twice a semester with software updates. In the meantime, we use Faronics DeepFreeze to prevent users from making changes... after they log-out (or time-out using a script) the workstation restarts and Deep Freeze kicks in, restoring to its original "frozen" state.
Deep Freeze + Ghost + Win XP + Automated SysPrep + PXE booting = best deployment possible. - tempster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1agilethumbs don't you think you are over reacting just a bit? i'm sure the webmaster did it for entertainment purposes
oh he isn't a "moron web programmer." his about page is password protected now but it said he is in medical school and will be a surgeon
i dont mean any hero worship here but a tech savvy blogger who is a surgeon makes you stupid compared to him. - joeanon, on 04/07/2008, -0/+1I think most of you missed the point.
They aren't advocating IT level image distribution.
They are showing you how to use imaging software to make common re-installation of your home system easier.
This means, instead of a generic installation like most of you are talking about with Ghost, you have a fully customized installation MADE for your PC.
That's the way to use imaging software.
As far as IT, terminal server is really the superior solution to distributed images.
WHY bother with all the added hardware and management when you can centralize and consolidate.
Of course you've been using ghost for years. That's because your out of the loop and imaging is not longer the tried and true solution of IT.
Ghost is all but dead in quality IT circles and imaging in general is on the decline as the terminal model make a come back.
No more hardware troubleshooting, you just pop a new terminal in place, the user logs on and has all his data. No need for all that local data, which is a MAJOR security weak point.
Few common apps don't run in a terminal setup and even if you don't use Windows... Linux can handle it THAT MUCH better.
Terminals are the best cost of operation solution. Hdd images are nice... for 15 years ago or for high end workstations and such that can't run on a terminal server.
User backups is where disk imaging technology should be focuses.
It already knows about imaging. It's the home user that doesn't seem to grasp the concept of backing up OR if they do, they never evolve beyond floppies and CDRs.
System restore was a decent idea, and with today's INSANE drive capacity I can see System Restore becoming a full imaging solution.
NOW, if they can just make a way to safely run it OUTSIDE of the OS. All too often Windows repairs don't work or AREN'T worth the time, hence why imaging is so popular.
I like how Mac's allow you to firewire to their drives. The entire PC world as a whole needs to embrace smarter maintenance designs like that and perhaps default raid setups, since drive prices are so low.
Home Media PCs should become terminal servers so you can buy one kick ass PC and move a dirt cheap terminal server around to get multiple log ins.
Great for most common, non gaming uses. - hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1and... if you prefer to get your hands slightly dirtier (than nlite)
http://www.petri.co.il/windows_2000_xp_sp_slipstreaming.htm - gurijala, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Internet Explorer is not supported on this website. Please download Firefox by clicking here..." clicking redirects to Mozilla.com website
I love the tip he gives on the top of website. You will see if you use Internet Explorer. - bobpaul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Deep Freeze + Ghost + Win XP + Automated SysPrep + PXE booting = best deployment possible."
Oh, I hate Deep Freeze. Don't get me wrong, it's a great program when it's working, but that Maintence Mode is garbage; more than half the time it won't run the damn scripts! We ended up using Zenworks Client on the machines to push whatever scripts we wanted to run durring our maintence mode because deep freeze's internal script calling is really sketchy. Not to mention that we've had a number of bad update processes. New versions of deep freeze have required from scratch images on more than a couple occasions. (Most go ok, but at least twice I was there we had to rebuild all of them from scratch because deep freeze blue screened us out of windows.)
It's definately easier to use Deep Freeze than to properly secure the computer using file permissions, which can be really tricky, esp with older software. - gbrushtwood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1+digg
I did this all the time at my old job when deploying client desktop machines. Truely a tremendous life saver.
However, one thing that was not mentioned in the article, which is important (I also posted this on the digee's site):
You can not perform more than 3 syspreps on the same image and expect to regenerate the Windows activation security identifiers on the fourth try. Apparently, this is a hard coded thing by Microsoft (presumably to prevent people from constantly sysprepping?? Not really sure for this reason) and I don't believe there is a hack to get around this.
Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way when I tried loading up an image on which I had performed > 3 syspreps. I didn't touch the image for over 30 days, and when I went to load it back up, Windows would not load up, as the activation expired.
So, this is a useful tool, but be careful when doing multiple syspreps on the same Windows installation... - ThankTheCheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ CrazyZ
lol yeah, that's true. But you gotta start somewhere. I wish I had this resource when I was young and learning all this stuff for the first time. - hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sure... here's a direct link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipstream_%28computing%29
And already noted, but worth noting again... absolutely transcending simplification of the process
http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html
: - hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ ArmandoM
I agree. As a network engineer myself (and and some admin) we run an ArcServe tape backup routine but don't have a need for image backups. The experience with Ghost I did have awhile back was an extremely buggy experience.
I'd take Acronis True Image over a bloated and buggy Norton product any day of the week. Plus for what the op described, I think a slipstreamed XP disc is truly fitting. nLite! - ArmandoM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"If you do not know how to do this, you have absolutely no right claiming any sort of administration experience....."
Bull... I've been a network administrator for just under 10 years, and haven't ever touched ghost for anything except single standalone systems. Novell ZENworks works just fine for us and our couple thousand machines. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This looks nice and all, but I think it's much easier to run ghost.exe v.8 (2003) from a bootable disc and do everything in dos. You only need about 5MB worth of files to create a snapshot of your entire drive, or just a partition and save the file somewhere. This process only takes about 10 minutes. You use the same disc to restore from your image (the image can be on another parition, drive, or even dvdr). Again, restoring only takes about 10 minutes.
I don't know where I'd be without Ghost. I haven't had to reinstall Windows in over a year. Before making significant hardware changes, I reload from my ghost image, install the hardware, then save a new Ghost file.
There is a great guide to doing this here: http://ghost.radified.com/bootable_cd_dvd.htm
but a friend of mine created a better one, with much more useful screenshots. His site is offline, but I still have the html/gif files. Maybe I can find a good free host for this. - d0ogie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Knew a lot of this stuff already.....but a big digg++ for the link to vernalex.com's sysprep guide
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah Zenworks is much better.. However a lot of companies use Ghost only and there is nothing you can do about it if you havent gotten the pull to knock some sense into the purchasing department.. The funny thing is this guy probably just found out about this after getting a job from his paper credientals.. haha the real world of IT aint it a bitch!
- desimaniac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I believe windows vista will have some disk imaging built in.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yikes! I see it on the very bottom.. nevermind that last comment.
@tuxnician
RIS with PXE is super isn't it! Do most NICs you run into support PXE?
I'd say your supervisor is making sense with regard to RIS and PXE (as opposed to Ghost) and group policy (as opposed to Deep Freeze).
I think it's much more efficient to use the built ins rather than relying on other propriatery progs. - Netweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Have a look into Microsoft Automated Deployment Services.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/ads/default.mspx - Prog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Totally digging this...this may be awesome at work.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Pretty cool-- this is what some OEM's do with their restore disks.
- eclectro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1^^I would also venture that xcopy could do this also, though I have not tried. Digg for the newbs that need this.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0to partially answer my own question (although someone can share their expertise if they wish), I have read further and it appears there is a tab in Ghost for sysprep integration, whereby when you dump your image, you can point ghost to the .inf so that when you restore image, ghost will load sysprep after restore and rebuild the hardware/config based on sysprep. I believe that's it in a nutshell right?
I dunno folks... For the amount of effor that goes into this, it seems like a very fragile way for a home user to protect their system from failure. Threats upon restore, include different HAL (as pointed out, bsod), plugNplay fubars rebuilding the hardware config after image restore (and forget about it if you've built a totally different system right? I mean c'mon. If you're going to do this legwork, do you want something that'll be only flexible enough to allow for a vid card swap or something that'll really work across all your home PCs?), and last but not least, you're at the mercy of Ghost, should it error or bug out for whatever reason, your recourse is shot to hell. In my experience with Ghost, this happens QUITE often, leading me to try Acronis in the 1st place (which I like btw).
What do you guys think? - bobpaul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I didn't touch the image for over 30 days, and when I went to load it back up, Windows would not load up, as the activation expired."
When you run sysprep.exe, tick the box that says "Reset Activation" and you'll get 30 days from the day it boots on a new (or the same) machine. Then you don't have to worry about not having a corp edition. - hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way when I tried loading up an image on which I had performed > 3 syspreps. I didn't touch the image for over 30 days, and when I went to load it back up, Windows would not load up, as the activation expired."
Interesting... maybe better served on an corp. (activation-less) xp. - chubbymidget, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Nice to see so many pro ZENWorks comments.
Digg - echosierratwo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0good stuff. I've been doing this for about two years now. i use it to deploy Win2k machines and XPPro laptops. Makes my like a WHOLE HELL of a lot easier.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Also, is it just me? I don't see anything in that how-to about Ghost... just how to configure a deployment MS disc with sysprep.
- AnusBreaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1uh, just use partimage. its easy as ***** to use and its FREE.
- aspangenberg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Works great on the college campus. The computers in the labs get messed up so quickly. I pop in the boot disk and grab the image over the network, eat lunch, return and pretty much done.
- tuxnician, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Since moving to W2003 server we use RIS and pxe to load the images to the desktops. (We've previously used Ghost). After booting through pxe it will only give a choice of the images that best match the current computer. I'd like to see a system that sends a new image down automatically. Group policies are used for lock down (previously used Deep Freeze). "As directed by my supervisor"
- Jusedawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well, to avoid the BSOD on different hardware, you simply have to setup sysprep to run mini setup after the DOS portion of the image is done copying. After the first reboot, Windows GUI setup will start as if you just installed a fresh copy of Windows form the CD.
We use it on hundreds of different types, manufacturers and models of computers and I have not found one yet that it gave the BSOD. Some of the newer Dells do not have PS/2 ports, only USB, and once the mini-setup starts, it does not pickup the USB keyboard or mouse.
To work around this problem, you must force the mouse and keyboard to be reinitialized during mini-Setup. To do so, add the following lines to the [SysprepMassStorage] section of the Sysprep.inf file before the unattended installation begins:
[SysprepMassStorage]
*pnp0303=C:windowsinfkeyboard.inf
*pnp0f03=C:windowsinfmsmouse.inf
*pnp0f0b=C:windowsinfmsmouse.inf
*pnp0f0e=C:windowsinfmsmouse.inf
*pnp0f12=C:windowsinfmsmouse.inf
*pnp0f13=C:windowsinfmsmouse.inf
Other than that, works like a chram. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+022 steps? Here's the OS X Equivalent:
1) Install system and tweak to fit your needs.
2) use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy to external drive, use "Make Bootable" option
3) boot recipient system from external
4) use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy external to internal, use "Make Bootable" option
5) reboot recipient system - definiteform, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good writeup. We do it differently at work and have the privilege of a nice VLK. Automation is the best. However, he should have written what to do in Ghost for those who are unaware. Anything before Ghost 9 will work with this method. I have not figured out how to use new Ghost and reimage. I use Ghost 8.0 Corporate at work; it works great.
- papau, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow . Not much to say on this but ...Hey... that's cool thanks :p
- dipswitch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"create a universal disk image of Windows XP that will restore onto any computer"
Umm. No. The HAL needs to be the same, or you'll get a BSOD.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302577&sd=tech#3
Also try nLite, which can create customized install CDs, with things left out you don't need, with a lot of registry tweaks if you want, and loaded with the latest drivers. With boot scriptor, you can also add Ranish Partition manager, ntpasswd and ghost to the mix. All easily accessible from the CD boot menu :)
http://www.nliteos.com/
http://www.cdshell.org/bootscriptor/
http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/
PS. The captcha works again :) - thund3rstruck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I can do this in my sleep. But ZENworks Imaging is much better."
HA! ZENworks... (and NDS in general) is pure tedium... HP OpenView Radia's OS Manager is the far superior product for batch image/re-image network deployment.... - hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@dipswitch
I'd like to pick you brain for a moment. What examples would you say are enough to trigger a HAL change? The link to the original site from the story's blog seems like he works on nothing but a set of acutely similiar pcs.
so...
Different RAM technologies? Different Mobos? CPUs (note: if CPUS, is it as sensitive as a speed change on the same arch or perhaps, a switch from a 478 to a LGA775 or AMD 939)? - rfquinn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Another ZENworks user here. It works great; but it's definitely for the corporate world, not home users. (Which this article seems to focus on)
- dunbone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887816
This link willl be helpful for those who have found that their customized user settings didn't transfer over to the default user (SP2 only), when using sysprep. Great post! Pretty close to how I've been doing it for 5 years. - benb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0aztechclan said: "don't forget about G4U!!! Admittedly it's a tad slow building the image, but it's free and can image any operating system. This is also the reason it's slow. It doesn't care what filesystem you use, only the bytes matter."
Ditto...G4U does come in handy. - junkyinny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0drive snapshot is great too.. backs up windows xp while your using it even.. can make self bootable images ..blah..
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hmm... it sounds like (by your own volition) that slipstream CAN achieve what ghosting does, albeit in a safer manner. It is true, add-ons are necessary if you want to have apps preinstalled. Though, I can’t rightfully say it makes sense to make a “universal” [cough] image disk with a large amount of apps preinstalled. A great deal of my apps are updated quite frequently. It’s nonsensical to start a fresh machine with uninstalling stuff. Now if you’re dumping images to a network drive every other day that’s one thing but who is really going through this entire config every other day?
With regard to what this article is trying to achieve, I just think slipstream makes more sense. All the support is there, it's really not that difficult, and in the end you achieve a disc that works across ANY PC, without needing to cross your fingers though through the install, hoping that both the HAL, PnP detection, and Ghost all work seamlessly on any given system. For example, I’m running a couple of notebooks it would probably work ok on (since they are similar models), but than I also have a server, and two custom (and completely different) pcs in my home. I don’t think this method would be working. And what about the duo core (or merom) notebook I’ll be buying later on this year? Since the very premise of the article is a “universal disc that would work on any pc”, don’t you think the methodology is really selling some people short here?
Regarding slipstream, I’m not sure really sure what you mean by "not working right". I have a slipstream of XP, and it does work right. So do countless others. You know the boys on tWiT? Some of them are big fans too (i.e. Roger).
Also, I do understand sysprep but I wasn't sure how it played into Ghost until I read ghost had integration of it. Believe me, I'm not devaluing sysprep in any shape way or form. It's a superb tool for unattended and/or preconfigured deployment in the workspace... I just don't see the value of this particular route in the home, unless you’re deploying the OS to a group [very] similar pcs with the same architecture.
In a large environment, sysprep along with remote installation services and/or system management server deployment would be a very smart option but that is neither here nor there.
Alas so it seems to me, a roundabout way to accomplish what can’t truly be accomplished with said method… that’s all I’m saying.
Unrelated, do any of you hate captcha? - tempster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Slipstreaming couldn't hope to achieve what ghosting does. after reading the nlite forums, it sounds like add-ons must be made for every program u want to install. w/ sysprep & ghosting u can install office, aim, photoshop, configure all profiles and setting w/o having to make those svcpack addon files. slipstreaming sounds like a very complicated way of not getting things to work right. if ghost dont work for u then use acronis but sysprep is a must know tool.
- AtomicTheory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ummmmm, I've been using Ghost alone to do this for over 3 years. While this isn't really digg-worthy, I guess its useful for n00bs to learn that they can download some malware, get irrevocably fubar'ed, then have the whole system back healthy in under 2 minutes.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0BTW, I'd also like to add that Hisham did an excellent job of explaining how to do said procedure and how well it works for the parameters he described (on his home pc, where peripheals may change a great deal and without a lot of downtime). It is you (tempster) who have mislead people with this.
"Clear instructions on how to use Ghost and Sysprep to create a universal disk image of Windows XP that will restore onto any computer. No more reinstalling necessary after making this." - hagfish16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0FYI - for those curious about ghosting to entirely different hardware.. Another pretty simple solution (perhaps a little unorthodox).. Put the image onto the new (different hardware) system. Of course if you just load it up you will get a BSOD. Here's the solution. Boot to your OS install disk and have whatever drivers you need for the new hardware on a floppy disk (it will prompt you to hit F6 to install the drivers), then do a repair (not a console repair) - It will basically copy your new drivers, rewrite the main system files, but keep the registry/users/applications, etc.. I just did this last week imaging an IDE win2k server to a SCSI raid 5 system.. Worked like a champ..
- elroy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"ghost" ? windows users need a commercial product to make disk images? hmmmm....
- Xalorous, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ghost is pretty straight forward.
What I want to see is a HOWTO on creating a PXE image. - tempster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0can u define slipstream install?
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