Push Images from Server

[winstonanderson]

Hello,

I've been doing a lot of reading on the Microsoft website and I can't seem to find a solution for what I'm looking to do.

I am looking for a way that I can select a workstation from the server and tell workstation to re-image itself automatically. I would like this to be done over night in some sort of batch sequence if it all possible.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you!

-Winston

[mmarable]

Microsoft doesn't have a solution like that right now, although I'm told the next version of SMS (SCCM) is supposed to have this sort of functionality.

Ghostcast Server might fit your need, if Ghost is something you want to use.

[winstonanderson]

Thank you very much for your quick reply.

I'm currently testing out Symantec Ghost Solution Suite and it seems to be doing what I wanted.

Thanks again for all your help mmarable!

-Winston

[jondercik]

Altiris can do this as well.

[fly]

I scripted something like this using BartPE on a hidden Dell partition. Mine was a little different in that I would have a scheduled task run every night, generating a random number between 1-30. If it picked the right number, it would change the active partition to BartPE (via diskpart), and reboot. So I ended up with a fresh machine about every 30 days.

You could just add a file to the machines you want reinstalled and have a scheduled task check for that file.

[FrankE9999]

You may want ot check out Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment 2007. They have something called "Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) with SMS 2003".

I basically use the "Lite Touch Installation (LTI)" method since I don't have SMS server 2003. It is a very simple process to create or restore an image. You basically boot off a Windows PE CD, map a network drive and create or restore and image. You need to configure the hard drive using diskpart which is a command line utility but it's very simple once you get used to it and you can write a batch file to automate the process. You can also create a WinPE DVD with the image and restore using that. This works well for remote users who don't have a good connection to the server.

Imagex lets you mount an image so it looks like it is part of the directory structure. This allows lets you make small changes without having to recreate the image.

Edited May 20, 2007 by FrankE9999

[winstonanderson]

Thanks for all the great information guys!