Setting Up Multiple Windows computers

[Lucy]

I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a server based software application that could be used to push out installations of software to new computers. Right now in my job we are setting up computers manually one at a time. I just ordered a KVM switch which will help me to expedite this process, but I was hoping that there maybe was a software I could configure and automate the process. Initially, we set up all of our computers the same; WinXP OS, MS Office, Antivirus, Windows Updates, Office Updates etc...... We have tried Ghost in the past and were unsuccessful. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[La_La]

WAY over my head, some be some one else to chim in and help you out..

[jroche5998]

We use SMS, I'm not sure which software company, but since you are mostly a Microsoft office from what you listed it would make sense to maybe try Microsoft's version.

http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/default.mspx

I hope this helps.

[pstansel]

Well I would have said Ghost but you said that didn't work. I'd still say ghost myself with a Bart's BootPE disk and a ghostcast server. But failing that, you can use the tools from Microsoft itself to do image deployments. Look at RIS for example, or any software that allows you to PXE boot.

[Korelis]

Curious as to what happened with Ghost? We use three different imaging solutions. Now we are on Dell computers. Our first one is a IDE imaging device. Can't remember the name of it. But it not server side. We also use Altiris Deployment Server to do some imaging of machines. However, our Altiris server is having some slight problems. Ghost is what we are using to depoly our newest Dell GX620's. Can you explain the ghost problems that you had?