Unattended Install vs. Norton Ghost

[x00783]

<<spam>>.net just posted a new Nero Release. Made me think of nVidia and its 2 million updates. I wonder how many people here when they reinstall their desktop what do they use.

I find it a lot easier to use Ghost and make a baseline image with all my installs, drivers, apps, registrations, activations, settings, etc then using the Unattended install. I made a UI (unattended install) and tried it out. It took me a number of tries to get it right and to be honest resetting up everything on my computer using the UI seemed a bit more work for me than I wanted to spend. With Ghost I just restore the image, udate programs etc, then rewrite and verify the image. Mostly an easy process.

One advantage UI has thought is the cost. UI is free, it just costs your time.

What do you gusy think?

Note.... I reinstall about every 2 weeks not because of problems but I do beta test a lot of software and tweak and tweak stuff left and right........

Semper Fi!

[argon007]

I am using the Ghost and learning how to make a Unattended XP CD.

[Drewdatrip]

Ghost is not a bad plan of action if your installing on the same machine....but the main reason i use unattended is so i can install it on many systems and have all the basiline apps and updates...its saves me tones of time when building systems and getting them upto the point where they are fully configured and ready to use

|Drew|

[x00783]

I just realized (for the 5 millionth time) that UI is good for multiple computers as it detects drivers.. duh silly me.....

[sleepnmojo]

woohoo, another one of these threads.

Same discussion is going on here

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=24258

barely a day old. Most people wait a month before starting a new one of these.

[x00783]

I am sorry..... mods can delete if they wish....

[Icecone]

Note.... I reinstall about every 2 weeks not because of problems but I do beta test a lot of software and tweak and tweak stuff left and right........

why dont you use Vmware to test that as all that resinstalling would make me crazy

but i think ghost is a better way to reinstall windows but if u create a cd that u can give to famely and college's to use with differente pc's unattended is handyer it both has its up and downsize

[nolookingca]

if you use the unattended method, you could always apply registry patches to customize most of the stuff.

[prathapml]

Most people wait a month before starting a new one of these.

Ha ha ha.....

See this humour, over at the funny farm - fits the reality, don't you think?

thread repeats

[Doggie]

moved to correct place

stick to topic or its closed

[Lolly]

Im making an unatteded install DVD.

Going to use that as the Install for new PC's.

After the install, I do the ghost image, as always.

There is other apps that are equally good I guess but

I have yet to try, I heard ImageDrive is an app that

actually compresses the image more than Ghost,

go figure, im just use to using the ghost by now.

Recently got me new hardware and I had to try if it boots up with

the ghost image from the older PC, it didnt. Maybe there's a workaround

for that, but now I find the Custom Unattended more interesting,

maybe because it will work on most PC's and I can Customise the setup too.

"Normal" install from my XP Pro cd takes some time

but thats not all, I also have to install them apps I like,

firefox, incredimail, firewall/antivir, huge audio-apps (samples up to gigabytes)

and of cource, tweak the helll out of it,

disable most of the services I dont need etc.

and that will take a lot of time if done manually.

Ghost image takes about 10 to 20 min. to throw on the partition, depends on the size,

and it can be burned on several cd's or dvd-r's, which is cool if one has

many gigabytes of extra programs.

The next move now is for me to make a Xp Pro unattended booting

from a dvd so I can automatically install my favorite apps, all of them.

I got a unattended CD that works allready, was pretty basic, but

now I want more, he he, custom Setup screen with all the bells and whistles...

I know I could strip down the Xp a lot to make a room for my favorite

audio apps, but I wont, I want to have the

opportunity to install Win. Components later if I needed.

Sounds a bit silly but thats the way things are.

Simply, Ghost is pretty easy and fast to use, perfect way of making a backup,

but my Unattended install will probably work better on other PC's etc.

laters...

[prathapml]

Simply put, ghost is good when you've got a few tens of machines in front of you (or hundreds, but that's a different scale altogether - you won't have all of them IN FRONT of you), all with the same hardware in them. Unattended installs are better when the number is fewer with more variance in hardware, and you have really tweaked the uA well enough to make it viable.

[Skitso]

Ghost is a lot easier to use and faster to do.

Unattend has greater use.

[Dark-Fiber61]

First off i would like to thank you for the great guide. For now everything is working out well if what i wanted to do with this. But i am having one small problem. I am trying to move the Program Files folder to the D: drive. I was able to move the Users folder over with no problems with the Folder Locations component. I have tried several names for the folder locations like D:\ProgramData, D:\ProgramFiles, and D:\Programs with no luck. For the user's folder i just used what i saw in the xlm help of the AIK D:\Profiles and it worked. Has anybody had any luck with this? thanks a lot.

[CoffeeFiend]

If you want to ask a question please start a new thread. Asking for something unrelated like this, is called thread hijacking. And in the relevant section too. Asking for technical help doesn't exactly belong in the poll center (it's for polls).

And for the love of god, please don't dig up topics like this that had no replies for 4 years, unless you have a good reason to.