Mass Deployment - SysPrep - Ghost

Hi all !

I am looking for someone to take on a special project, or someone that has done something like this before..... even willing to PAY for this one. someone that can help us literally shave thousands and thousands of hours off of our workload. I want to create a base image that will be installed on all of the computers we put out the door. Its really easy if all of the computers are the same.. but they are not. There are dozens of different models, styles and manufacturers, etc, etc, etc....

A little quick intro for those that don't know me/us.

I run a non profit org, Hawaiian Hope. We take in computers as donations, refurbish them and then redistribute them back into the community. Some of the primary things we do with them is build computer classrooms / training centers in homeless shelters, and give computers to people when they are moving back into housing.

Ok, here is the deal.
We currently have about 500 computers in stock. We have given away possibly over 350 computers so far. I fully expect to go through 3,000 computers over the next year. All of those 350 computers have had a fresh install done on them. The obvious immediate thought next is... OMG you have any idea how much time that takes to do a fresh install ???? Yes,, and that is why we are looking to get this done now.

I have been reading up on the Microsoft "SysPrep" option. This looks much more feasible for us and what we are trying to accomplish. Here are articles relating to it.

http://blog.hishamrana.com/2006/02/22/how-to-image-windows-xp-with-...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314472#XSLT...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283/

I am looking for someone that is interested in taking on this project for us and helping us to build an install image. Even if we have to go and install various drivers on each machine afterwards.. that is OK in comparison to doing a full install. I am willing to pay the person that makes this happen as it is such an important time saver for us.


I had a few "other" ideas on this... some were sort of successful.. One idea was
a) to do a fresh install...
b) do a full backup (triggering the archive attribute to be flagged)
c) install all of the standard software we normally do..
d) then do a differential backup (grabbing only the files that changed)...
e) then, in theory, on new computers, do a fresh install and then restore the differential backup.

one obvious problem is that it backs up the entire registry and other system files... I only wanted the changes... and changes within the files (after initial install)

I was even looking at taking the important system files and trying to do a differential on the changes and take only the changes... but again... i dont ahve the time to dedicate to this now.


Who is interested in being a hero today ?

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