Okay, so I work at a place where we usually get several hundred of a particular model of computer, which are used by companies or whatever. And basically, we have to install an OS on each and every one. Right now, we use MiniPE(discontinued, and obsolete) which has Acronis 9. We install the OS on one machine, then back up the entire drive, and just restore it on every machine. Unfortunately, this means having to have the backup on a flash drive, which is inserted while loading miniPE. I love it, it's a great setup, because it honestly only takes a few clicks, and you're done. I tried to make this easier by installing Acronis 11, using the latest acronis PE based on WAIK, and using their software to make all the backups we carry available over the network. This works great, except that it's taking more clicks than I had hoped. You now have to specify more things before being able to restore the backup, as opposed to 9, which did this automatically. and there's no shut down button, you have to wait a fair amount of time after exiting acronis for the system to shut down. although now I can access the images over a network, eliminating the need for flash drives. Can someone recommend a better way of doing things? I want a fast booting PE environment, which has the option to save a backup of the drive to a networked machine, and also restore backups from that machine. Minimal clicks or interaction. And quick bootup, easy shutdown.
I have not used it personally but you should be using WDS (Windows Deployment service ) and MDT (Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.)
I've looked into that. It actually takes longer to prepare each computer than the method I'm currently using. Keep in mind, we bang out several hundred of these per day. We don't have the time to sit there and type in information for the computer, or set up any specific options. Honestly I'd be happy with Acronis 9 if I could find a faster booting PE environment for it(I suppose I could make my own) and a networked means of deploying. It does have options for FTP, and whats called an Acronis Image Server, but I haven't been able to find copies of that software, as it's two versions outdated, and payware. The FTP option would require that I type the FTP information into Acronis each time. I'm looking to increase the speed of this process, and eliminate the use of flash drives, and replace with a networked option.