Vista Business Deployment Best Practices / Help

[hallja3]

In the past (for XP):

I created an image using ghost and sysprep for each type of machine we have. Each image included the basic software, latest updates, and applicable drivers for that machine.

We are now going to Vista and I want to improve this process, but everything I have tried to do has just complicated things, and I feel sometimes like I am making things way too complicated.

My Goal:

Have one image (preferably a ghost image because we are licensed for the software) that includes all drivers for all machines, includes all the basic software, all updates, etc. I like how my current process takes 10m to push an image to a machine, and all I really have to do is let it run through sysprep and then create the user profile and deploy it.

I don't really want a DVD that's unattended where I have to stick it in the machine and let it actually install Windows.

My Question(s):

Can I do what I want to achieve? Is it actually possible to include drivers in an already installed version of Vista, meaning when I push it to a machine it just uses the drivers it needs?

What are some other ways/best practices you guys use to accomplish a similar task.

If it comes down to sticking a DVD in the machine and letting it go, I guess that would work, but that install time seems to be 30-40m instead of the 10 it takes when i push a ghost image to it over the network.

What I have Tried:

I tried using the WAIK and going that route with AutoUnattend. I made it work on a very basic level, but anything with drivers or any kind of domain joining just resulted in complete failure.

I tried vLite which has some nice features, but the most important feature, the drivers, again really didn't work out well. It installed a few of them but not the display driver which is crucial as these are going to be CAD machines.

I tried using ghost to create a simple image, and then using AI packages with the drivers in them. Failed again.

As you can see the drivers are giving the me the biggest problem, and I don't think I should have to do a bunch of scripting to make this work.

One thing to add: If anyone uses licensed software or any kind of hardware devices to do their deployments I am open to those ideas as well. I have seen things like the KACE Kbox which advertise as application deployment hardware for deploying your OS and all software to machines effortlessly. But just with the experience I have had with the other things I have tried, I am skeptical about buying something that could potentially give me the same problems.

Sorry for the ridiculously long post and thanks for any insight you can provide.

[Tripredacus]

The Microsoft Best Practices are here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749092.aspx

The steps are basically this:

1. Use the Vista DVD to install Windows, then install your drivers and applications. You can do this either manually or via AutoUnattend.xml

2. Sysprep /generalize and whatever other options you want. You can also make your sysprep file to handle the actions of the machine after deployment here.

3. Capture the image with Imagex.

4. Deploy the image with Imagex.

5. After the deploy, your sysprep setup will do the things like join to domain, and get other applications and/or additional drivers.

So basically, you make an image for each config that you have.