Many school districts use Ghost for desktop imaging. I suppose we have multiple versions floating around of varying ages. Some have suggested that this product is quite expensive. I assume that (1) this is why several districts use an older version of the product or (2) that perhaps districts don’t have legal copies of Ghost.
As with seemingly everything else, there are open-source imaging products out there. One such FREE solution is called FOG. I talked to my counterpart in another region that stated that Elizabethtown is using this product in their district with some success. I’ve only briefly scanned the overview and screenshots, but this appears to use TFTP and PXE booting and will image 2000/XP/2003/Vista operating systems.
I’ve heard of districts (Lyon and, at one time, Livingston) that use RIS. I think we take desktop imaging for granted, since we all have to routinely perform this task. Since it’s so critical to smooth operations in a school district, I’m completely on-board if a district feels the need to invest in an enterprise product to make this task as easy as possible. However, if money is an issue, it’s worth noting that there are free tools available that can help to accomplish this task.
Bruce, thanks for sharing about this product…