WINDOWS 7 DEPLOYMENT

[tech-man]

hey all,

my post is quite simple in scope.....i need to deploy windows 7 to my users of 100+ and need to devise the best possible way to do so. Should this be a migration or upgrade just transfer over using USMT?

All current systems are running windows XP Pro SP3 - all or most systems have 1 - 2GB of RAM, basic 256MB NVIDIA video cards or onboard video cards.

We currently employ the use of WDS on Windows Server 2003 R2, however, we are looking for a better, more automated process that will deploy an image from PXE boot on a bare-metal machine while retaining our naming scheme convention in sysprep or in the desired software.

any and all suggestions are welcomed. thanks!

[icecube]

Hi Tech-Man

Not sure what you are doing, but you cannot upgrade from XP to windows 7. It is a new install. It is a two step process. You build a backup file and transfer it to a backup drive. then run the install and from there DL the backup file and run it. then you reinstall the software.

I am not sure how a VLK for windows 7 works. You could have a problem there. I see no problem building a windows 7 system and ghosting it.

You build your own PXE boot disk and if you use Symantec Ghost Server, I see no problem deploying the image. We use to ghost 40 machines at a time in a 5 minute time frame. If you then join them to a domain, that should randomize the SIDS if you don't, you will have to run some sort of sys prep on each drive. On reboot, you will have to configure the system for IP, give it a name and then join it to the domain.

Hope this is of some help