Computer imaging software?

[Papa_Complex]

Does anyone have a line of software for imaging a number of computers, with the same setup?

We used to use Norton Ghost, but later switched to Altiris at Symantec's recommendation. The older version of Ghost won't support WinVista or Win7. We're now pretty much out of licenses for Altiris and they want stupid money for more, so we're looking for another product (preferably open source, if possible) to image a large number of PCs, of different types.

We maintain our installation files on a server, for fast recovery and initial installation.

[Trip]

demonoid altiris...lol

[Papa_Complex]

We operate on the legal side of the street, thank-you very much

[LeeNetworX]

I've used various methods/apps and Altiris is THE best we've used, IMO, hands down. Shame your company can't afford the renewal of the licenses. Have you tried negotiating with them/your contact? They may be willing to do so if you explain your situation and point out the cheaper/free alternatives.

[Papa_Complex]

Originally Posted by LeeNetworX

I've used various methods/apps and Altiris is THE best we've used, IMO, hands down. Shame your company can't afford the renewal of the licenses. Have you tried negotiating with them/your contact? They may be willing to do so if you explain your situation and point out the cheaper/free alternatives.

We're already getting educational pricing, so it's about as good as it'll get. We have an install base of perhaps 2500 computers, with half of those being in student labs. Those will continue to be handled with Altiris. The problem is the user systems, which generally only need to be imaged once, prior to being put into production. Each one of those needs a license and it's hard to justify.

[LeeNetworX]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

The problem is the user systems, which generally only need to be imaged once, prior to being put into production. Each one of those needs a license and it's hard to justify.

Gotcha. Altiris is definitely overkill for those systems.

[Papa_Complex]

Originally Posted by LeeNetworX

Gotcha. Altiris is definitely overkill for those systems.

We might have to reimage those later on, if the hard drive crashes or they're so badly virused that cleaning isn't a reasonable option, but we do that from base image and copy the recovered data.

[tallywacker]

I only used ghost, haven't made the migration to win7 yet.

You could test http://clonezilla.org/ to see if it works.

Win 7 tech thread

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/...ge-backup.html

[Papa_Complex]

Ghost doesn't properly image Win7 boot sectors. You can get around it by doing a Windows Repair on each imaged computer, but I don't know that I trust that.

Apparently Clonezilla requires essentially one server per image. When you've got a few dozen images, for old computer models and different operating systems, that's not good.

[tallywacker]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

Ghost doesn't properly image Win7 boot sectors. You can get around it by doing a Windows Repair on each imaged computer, but I don't know that I trust that.

Apparently Clonezilla requires essentially one server per image. When you've got a few dozen images, for old computer models and different operating systems, that's not good.

Yeah I didn't read into it, just throwing something out there. That seems to be the most popular open source software for imagining. I wasn't familiar with its limitations.