Unit 05: LO 4 - 4.3 - Disk Images + OSs

Disk imaging for deploying operating systems serves several critical purposes, especially in a business or educational environment:

Ensures Standardized and Efficient Deployment

• Uniformity: Disk imaging allows you to create a single "master" image with all the necessary software, drivers, and settings. This ensures that every computer you deploy has the same initial configuration, improving system uniformity and reducing inconsistencies that could lead to issues down the road.

• Speed: Using a disk image enables rapid mass deployment of operating systems across multiple machines, which is much faster than installing and configuring each one individually.

Minimizes Ongoing Support Costs

• Reduced Troubleshooting: Because all systems start with the same configurations and software, it's easier to troubleshoot issues, as you have fewer unique variables to consider.

• Maintenance Efficiency: Updates or changes can be made to the master image and then redeployed, making it easier to maintain and update systems.

Provides Full Systems Backup

• Disaster Recovery: Having a disk image serves as a full system backup that can be quickly restored in case of system failure or corruption. This is especially useful for reverting systems back to a known good state.

• Data Integrity: In scenarios where data integrity is crucial, disk images can be used to restore a system to an exact state, down to the last bit, ensuring that no data is lost or corrupted during the restoration process.

Overall, disk imaging for OS deployment is a robust strategy for managing multiple computer systems efficiently and securely.

We are assuming Windows 11 is already installed on every machine from the factory

1. Configure Computer 1 the way you want it (this could involved 50 steps)

2. Install Imaging Software: Microsoft's Windows Deployment Services (WDS), Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), or third-party tools like Clonezilla or Symantec Ghost. Creates the ISO (image file)

3. On Computers 2 through 30, install a program like Acronis True Image: Acronis True Image is a comprehensive backup and disk imaging software that also offers deployment capabilities. It allows you to create full disk images and deploy them to multiple computers simultaneously.

4. Mount the ISO file