New to Snap Deploy and really need guidence?

Hello fellow techs,

I'm trying to learn Snap Deploy to see if I can get my company to move to this instead of our current imaging solution. All I'm looking to do is a few basic things:

PXE Imaging:
I just need to manually boot a machine and upload or download an image.
Does this require a client on the pc or can I get by without one?

USB / CD / DVD / External Hard Drive Imaging?
Can I create a create stand alone imaging option using the above scenarios?

Acronis Universal Deploy
How well does this work in Windows XP

I would love some feedback on this, thanks guys.

Rick