[renthead]

My company has taken over a desktop situation that is a complete disaster. The users have myspaceim, video games, aim, some random wallpaper programs...pretty much a ton of bloatware. The machines are all different models and brands so I cant just reghost all the machines. Ideally, I would like to be able to retain the data on the machines (some of the machines have apps that need to be on there like their sql database front end and it is a pain to reinstall) and I also don't want to have to go to each machine and just clean each one up (I tried on one, it took almost an hour to uninstall all the carp they had on their machine, and that was a light one). I was thinking of setting up my ideal machine, using sysprep, and then run that to install, but...my question becomes, is that really going to remove the programs I don't want, it seems it just reinstalls windows, which doesn't really do much to aid in my issues of the third party apps. Is there another solution to "mass-clean" the workstations, its about 30-40 total. Any ideas for the brain storm?

[jcarle]

My suggestion is to re-install Windows on each one and then lock the workstation so that the users can no longer modify them.

[eyeball]

wow that is difficult,
my advice would be to do this in a phased approach, split the machines into 5's or something and do them a few at a time and give them time to use them and find errors. Identify problems as you go along and build the fixes into the next lot you roll out.
It may take a while but it will work
hope it helps

[tap52384]

If I am not mistaken, is Vista HAL-independent, meaning that one image can be put on any machine regardless of hardware differences?

Perhaps talk to your boss about upgrading to Vista to avoid these problems or getting identical computers for everyone. In the meantime, since you have to do something to clean these computers, why not set them up ideally and then take a snapshot with ImageX and store them on a server somewhere so that this problem can be more easily rectified in the future?

Are there no machines that are the same there? Are these all personal computers?

[tap52384]

If I am not mistaken, is Vista HAL-independent, meaning that one image can be put on any machine regardless of hardware differences?

Perhaps talk to your boss about upgrading to Vista to avoid these problems or getting identical computers for everyone. In the meantime, since you have to do something to clean these computers, why not set them up ideally and then take a snapshot with ImageX and store them on a server somewhere so that this problem can be more easily rectified in the future?

Are there no machines that are the same there? Are these all personal computers?

[eyeball]

u really think these users would be happy to go to vista?

1) they wont have great hardware so it will be slow
2) its different - scary for users
3) their programs may not run properly on it

im sure there are more reasons why not to move them all to vista.

This post has been edited by eyeball: 20 September 2007 - 08:45 AM

[renthead]

I flat out refuse to put them on vista, most of the machines are barely capable of running xp pro (256 RAM) and it is a non-profit, so I dont see them spending much money. Like I said, unless absoulutly necessary, I really want to avoid reinstalling/ghosting windows

[cluberti]

renthead, on Sep 20 2007, 12:26 PM, said:

I flat out refuse to put them on vista, most of the machines are barely capable of running xp pro (256 RAM) and it is a non-profit, so I dont see them spending much money. Like I said, unless absoulutly necessary, I really want to avoid reinstalling/ghosting windows

That's fine, but there's no real "automated" way to clean this, it's a one machine at a time per admin deal if you don't want to reinstall. You either spend the time creating / testing an image and deploying it, or spend time (likely the same amount) cleaning as best you can the machines in their current state.

There are pros and cons to each approach, so you'll have to determine wich you want to do.

[hazard_abio]

If anything that I can see build a Autoinstall CD with all the drivers and such on It, then go from there, basically cut down the amount of time you spend at each computer to a couple of minutes for starting the installation.

[bbone]

I believe that it become necessary reinstall each of the machines, but then lock the users in their user modes...
...and create a backup when the machine is freshly installed and fully working for each one. That way you can later resume back to working state in just like 5 min...
DriveImage is preffered, IMHO.