windows xp image

[Gabriel]

Hi NooNoo,
Not getting into too much debate - but from My experience in the long run it cuts down time...
Just Consider:
Installing WindowsXP-sp2 Takes Approx 1Hour (Two reboots at least)
Downloading and Installing Windows Update files - at lease two restarts and about 20Minutes
INstalling Office application suite (I am talking About office 2003 Pro) - at lease 30Minutes.
Installing Compression Program, Acrobat, Divx, Winamp, Firefox, P2p Program, AV and Firewall also takes about 40Minutes (with two system Reboot at least).
Optimizing Services, Deleting Temps, Optimizing Swap file, Defragging at least 30 Minutes.

You can see that Installing a system from Scratch is something like 2.5-3 Hours Min.
While doing it from an Image could hardly take 30Minutes (and two reboots max.)

The road is long - but once you have mastered it - it works like a charm.

You have to consider Updating the Image now and then (I do it every other month) - in order to have a better and more updated one

Cheers,
Gabriel

[HipHoper]

Well....Now that it works - it was worth it.
if i calculate how much time i've put into this work i consider it to be around 15-20 hours, and now it already saved me about 5 hours on 5 computers i've installed it already on and still counting.....
just for your knowlege....I stopped myself to selling a new computers with SATA hard drive becuase i've hated to insert floppy disk and copy SATA controller drivers and then press F6 at windows setup, but now with this image the world looks wonderful....
BTW NooNoo, what did douglas adams invented ?

[NooNoo]

Oh it was one of his books, he mentioned he adored his Mac and the fact that he would spend hours automating something that only took 10 seconds to do manually....

Do you want to post a how to on this image? Might make a nice piece...?

[Miq]

I struggled with creating a bootable ghost dvd for quite a while. Now that it is actually working I can take a formatted machine and have it fully configured within 30 minutes with xp sp2, office 03, avg, updates, ect..

Automation is a pain in the butt to get setup, but like so many other things once it starts working, it was worth i.