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So I've been put in charge of implementing Altiris across a few of our client sites. Which is great and the functionality I'm finding in the software is amazing for deployment and maintenance. However, part of this process is making computer images that are hardware independant and allows you to have one base image for all desktops, and another for all laptops.
Now in the past I've used a program called UIU http://www.binaryresearch.net/UIU/About.htm to strip a computer of all hardware configurations as well as the SID and everything that gets stripped with sysprep. With this program I was able to use the one image for both desktops and laptops and the companies support team would add in new drivers to the specialized cab within 3 days if I found something that wasn't there and supplied them with the drivers.
Sadly, using UIU isn't within the budget and I have found documentation for building harware generic images with just sysprep and some elbow grease. That's fine, don't mind doing it. However, I was wondering if any of you have had similar projects and have any tips and tricks. The way I see it I'll need to throw in the latest chipset drivers for the spectrum, ati/nvidia/intel graphics drivers, at least the currently used NIC drivers, and some audio drivers.
I haven't played with it to much but I do need to figure out how to take these drivers that come in install packages and find a way to extract all the files from them into a cab/folder. This seems to be an ongoing trend with graphics and audio packages. The other thing is the documentation I've found suggest converting the computer to standard PC instead of ACPI (without reboot until after it's imaged). Now, I can see this as a valid step back in 2001 when the document was written but can any of you think of any computers built in the last 5 years that didn't run just fine in ACPI mode? If this step is to to reset some hardware detection.. great. I'll set it to standard, reboot, and then set it back to ACPI and image. Otherwise it seems unnecessary.
Now in the past I've used a program called UIU http://www.binaryresearch.net/UIU/About.htm to strip a computer of all hardware configurations as well as the SID and everything that gets stripped with sysprep. With this program I was able to use the one image for both desktops and laptops and the companies support team would add in new drivers to the specialized cab within 3 days if I found something that wasn't there and supplied them with the drivers.
Sadly, using UIU isn't within the budget and I have found documentation for building harware generic images with just sysprep and some elbow grease. That's fine, don't mind doing it. However, I was wondering if any of you have had similar projects and have any tips and tricks. The way I see it I'll need to throw in the latest chipset drivers for the spectrum, ati/nvidia/intel graphics drivers, at least the currently used NIC drivers, and some audio drivers.
I haven't played with it to much but I do need to figure out how to take these drivers that come in install packages and find a way to extract all the files from them into a cab/folder. This seems to be an ongoing trend with graphics and audio packages. The other thing is the documentation I've found suggest converting the computer to standard PC instead of ACPI (without reboot until after it's imaged). Now, I can see this as a valid step back in 2001 when the document was written but can any of you think of any computers built in the last 5 years that didn't run just fine in ACPI mode? If this step is to to reset some hardware detection.. great. I'll set it to standard, reboot, and then set it back to ACPI and image. Otherwise it seems unnecessary.
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