I'm helping out with my kid's computer lab at school. They currently have to install all the software on each new computer they deploy. What I'd like to do is have one master image that can be cloned onto any new/replacement machine.

All the machines have the same hardware, so ideally, the master image would have all of the drivers and software installed on it. Is this the sort of thing that Symantec Backup or Acronis Backup & Recovery software can do? Would I need a license for each machine in the lab or just one license? I'm sure this problem has already been solved many times, so I'm looking for any advice on how best to do this. TIA

I've never had to do that myself, but I remember this toolkit from some time back. Might be a good start to investigate.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutio...rators/dd407791

Actually, I think you need to back up and address how you have to handle the product licensing for the individual software components being cloned onto the computers. This is what will determine what you need to have to make it work.

Does the school have site licenses for all software, or does each machine have an individual product code for each separate software package? If each software package has an independent product license code, you'll run into problems with simple cloning because every computer restored from the image will essentially be a duplicate of the machine used to create the original image, all the way down to the product license codes for the individual software packages. And that doesn't include problems with networking issues if a network is involved - the image would have the same machine ID and network settings as the source machine. It isn't hard to change a Windows product key or a machine ID, but some software packages make it a major chore to change product codes without reinstalling.

You definitely need to explore this issue before you begin looking for software.

I'm not sure what the licensing is for it (I think it's per server), but I've used Symantec Ghostcast extensively and highly recommend it. You create one or more master images, and then cast the image onto as many machines with the same hardware as you want. I've simultaneously imaged up to about 90 computers from one server.

Thanks for the replies. I believe that all of the software has site lic. except for the OS (Win XP Pro) which has licenses that came with the machines (Dells). I think that means that they are OEM licenses for the OS. this page makes me a little nervous about the ability to change the product key, but I don't have any experience on this. When I've done an install from scratch, it hasn't asked for the product key on the box. Does that mean that I'm using Volume Lic. media? Is this going to bite me down the line?

I'll take a look at the options suggested so far. Thanks!

Are you wanting a server-based network system, or are you simply wanting to create an image (say on an external hard drive) which can be used to re-image the machines to a specific site image as defined by the school?

If you are sure all of your software is site-licensed so you don't have to worry about licensing, the Dell XP OS shouldn't be a problem. Dell factory images the machines using their volume key, which never has to be activated. Dell's restore process (at least on XP, anyway) is BIOS-locked, so you don't have to change the key on the machine (i.e. if you use the restore CD on a machine with a Dell BIOS, it will skip activation - this is the reason you can use just about any Dell restore CD to restore any Dell XP-based machine). There is no need to change the Windows product key to the one on the machine COA because the factory key itself is valid.

If you want to experiment with doing this using an external hard drive, I'd reimage one of the machines back to Dell's factory image. Install all XP updates, then install all of your site specific software. Once the machine has everything installed and is configured exactly like you want it, use your cloning software to create your image (Acronis has a 21 day free trial you can play with - you can create a bootable Acronis restore DVD to boot on the machines being imaged to load the image from the USB drive). Clonezilla, which is free, also might be an acceptable option as well.

Networking might be the only problem -- for a simple network, all you'd need to do is change the machine's network name after imaging it (a few seconds work) and reboot. For a machine joined to a domain, however, the issues would be far more complex.