Bare-metal imaging for XP OEMs

Firstly, I have searched Google and this forum for this answer, with few results. (Interesting note: a search of "oem" on this forum yields no results.)

I have 20 Gateway PC's and 5 Dell PC's all with XP Pro OEM.. Each new PC goes through a process to get them ready for use. (Strip out bundled AOL, Antivirus, Toolbars, install new network shortcuts, business applications, etc)

I'm wanting to use an image process to reduce the setup time involved for each station. Is it possible to sysprep a PC of each hardware type, create an image with True Image, then restore that image to multiple PC's and enter in the appropriate OEM license key for XP on restoration?

Thanks...
-e

 

If you do a search of this forum for bare-metal, you will find a number of responses that most probably would apply to your case. One such response is as follows -

If your bare-metal machine has hardware configuration identical to that of the original computer then you can simply clone the hard drive. In this case all contents of the source disk including it's MBR will be transferred to the destination hard drive.

In case your bare-metal machine has a different hardware configuration then you should create an image of the entire source disk saving it to any type of the supported media, boot your bare-metal machine from Bootable Rescue CD and restore the beforehand created image using Acronis Universal Restore. In this case all contents of the source disk including it's MBR will be transferred to the destination hard drive.

found in the following thread -

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=126805&highlight=bare metal

 

Mark,

Thanks for your response. I searched "bare-metal" and read everything under those hits.

I guess the answer is that a combination of cloning and sysprep will yield the results I'm lookin for. The only fuzzy area now is sysprep for OEM operating system installations. I'll concentrate that search in the Microsoft area.

thx,
-e

 

Hello thelettere,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

In addition to what mark3 has said, I would also like to mention that even in case of using Microsoft System Preparation tool (sysprep) we cannot guarantee the successful transferring of the operating system to a computer with the hardware configuration different from that of the original machine. The point is that sysprep allows replacing drivers only for Plug-and-Play devices (sound cards, network adapters, video cards etc.). As for system HAL and boot device driver, they must be identical in the source and target computers (see Microsoft Knowledge Base articles 302577 and 216915).

If you want to be completely sure that the restored operating system will boot and function normally then we recommend that you use Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation in conjunction with Acronis Universal Restore for your purposes. Acronis Universal Restore technology provides an efficient solution for hardware-independent system restoration by replacing the crucial HAL and hard disk controller drivers. Please read more information on how to use Acronis Universal Restore in Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation User's Guide.

We also recommend that you download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation to see how the software works on your particular software\hardware configuration.

If you want to obtain the free trial version of Acronis Universal Restore then please submit a request for technical support using Ask a question before you purchase Acronis software link. Explain your wish to obtain the free trial version of Acronis Universal and provide the link to this thread in your request.

Please also note that according to Acronis software licensing policy, you should purchase one copy of Acronis program per every computer where it will be used.

Please visit Acronis online store to purchase the full version of the product. Note that we have a flexible system of discounts and the amount of the discount varies depending on the number of copies you want to purchase. We also provide special pricing for our OEM and reseller partners. In case you are planning to purchase many copies, please contact our Sales Team at sales@acronis.com.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov