Best Windows Imaging Software?

VLite or nLite are the only ones I'm aware of. Not sure if these are what you're looking for, but check them out.

 

For Windows only machines, use Symantec Ghost. Ghost was the defacto standard in every company that I had ever worked for.

There used to be two different versions of Ghost. Symantec's Ghost (the original), and later they bought a competitor (PowerQuest) and re-named and marketed that Norton's Ghost. In terms of backwards compatibility, the two are not compatible.

Using ghost, you can create one base image customized with your software and settings. Then use Microsoft's sysprep to create different driver profiles for the Latitudes and Optiplexes. You'll end up with one image that you can deploy to either hardware.

In my last two firms, ghost's ability to re-image a machine and get a user back online and working within 30 minutes was an essential part of the company's desktop support and troubleshooting strategy. Motto when in doubt, ghost.

You can also looked at Acronis, it was started by the people who originally created Ghost before Symantec bought them up.

 

I use Ghost and install it on anyone's computer I work on. I too have heard good things about Acronis TrueImage.

 

don't forget to locally rename your machines after laying down the image... but you already knew that anyway.

 

BigJobby brought up a good point.

Google Symantec Ghost and Microsoft Sysprep for base image checklist and best practice.

If you're using Microsoft's sysprep process, you can script to generate a random name, usually starts off with a static prefix and dynamic numbers; custom prefix-12345. Or fix it later with a vbscript or compiled exe program to rename the computer and join the domain of your choice.