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Imaging Steps / Procedures

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All,

We are trying to get Acronis SnapDeploy to work as our main solution for imaging and mass-deployments. Anyone have a good procedure on how they are performing such tasks? How are you dealing with OS license activations? Are you getting Microsoft OS Volume Licensing for WIN7 / WIN10?

Typically we purchase workstations direct from DELL / HP with OS pre-installed. Then install all apps and user profiles on the "Base" system, then image, then deploy image on remaining XX workstations.

Really want to get this done via multi-cast but not having much luck. Imaging via connected external HDD that contains the image(s) seems to work better.

Any help is appreciated. I coudl share some install procedures that we have as well

Thanks

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If you have Windows 10 OEM licenses, you may need to actually boot each system first and make sure the system registers a license with Microsoft at least once.  Now that Windows 10 is licensed via hardare and you no longer get a key, this is pretty much the option to use if you are using OEM.  From that point on, as long as you deploy the same type of OS, it should license just fine any time you need to push a new Windows 10 image to a machine that has already registered with Microsoft at least once before. 

Windows 7 OEM licensing sucks because each time the hardware is detected as being different, you have to activate again.  Problem is, that the OEM license is for each specific hardware, so you have to call Microsoft and get that long key to reactivate it (since you're using the same key each time you deploye that single image)- yuck.  If you're using Win 7 OEM licenses, you either have to deal with the slow process of reactivating license keys with Microsoft each time... or, get a volume license key which will make your life easier, but may cost you a pretty penny.  

For network deployments, drop multicast and switch to unicast.  Multicast may cause broadcast storms depending on your switching/routing environment.  To limit that, you could setup your deployment server on it's own local network used just for imaging.  Otherwise, use unicast and boot each system with PXE one by one - it's still faster than using a disc for each system and will probably work better on your nework if you're deployment server is on your production LAN. 

Thanks for the info.

So for WIN10 you are saying we have to first run through the initial WIN10 install and register. Then deploy the WIN10 image we have for it?

Volume Licensing is really not an option too much$$. Does WIN7 have the same issues as WIN10 systems. As is we still need to perform the inital boot and register before deploying the image?

Americo Dellorco wrote:

So for WIN10 you are saying we have to first run through the initial WIN10 install and register. Then deploy the WIN10 image we have for it?

Yup - most likely.  I'd test it on one machine in your environment to be sure (make sure you back up the original image of that machine first though so you can restore it if you need to!!!!)  With OEM Windows 10, the HARDWARE (motherboard), must be registered with the original OEM license at least one time to register the activation with Microsoft.  Once that hardware has a valid registered license, then you can restore any similar Windows 10 OEM license to the same hardware again, even if that image was taken with a different license.  All that Windows 10 OEM licensing cares about is that the hardware was registered at least once in order to activate it on the system.

Americo Dellorco wrote:

Volume Licensing is really not an option too much$$. Does WIN7 have the same issues as WIN10 systems. As is we still need to perform the inital boot and register before deploying the image?

Nope, Windows 7 licensing is different. All of your Windows 7 systems should have an OEM license Key that came with them.  If you don't have it, you can use someting like jellybean magic keyfinder to pull it from the OS.  You'll notice that you won't find such a license key on your Windows 10 systems - and keyfinders don't work on them either - they'll give you a key, but it will be exactly the same for every system and that key can't be used to activate Windows 10 OEM.  With Windows 7, you can enter the OEM key to activate the machine after the image has been deployed.  However, depending on how many times this has been done, you may end up having to call Microsoft from time to time to get that extra long confirmation key.