Remote Desktops and Imaging / Rebuilds

[doodab]

I've managed it in the past. It depends how different the drivers are. Win7 should hold up better than XP I expect, but either will likely need reactivation. Have a look at the sysprep tool.

For drive cloning on a non industrial scale, paragon partition manager is pretty good, and free on the PC Pro coverdisk from time to time as well.

[Spacecadet]

its on me other laptop so will have to check

What platypus has said had got me thinking and think ill have to match the hardware first - i originally thought that getting the O/S, registry etc was all I needed to replicate but of course the drivers will be unique to my hardware - hmmm still think I could kludge it but would need a custom built lappy and more patience than I have.... need to think this through

You need the plus pack:
Restoring to Dissimilar Hardware with Acronis True Image Home 2010 Plus Pack | Knowledge Base

you'll also need to download the drivers for the new laptop chipset

[Sysman]

its on me other laptop so will have to check

What platypus has said had got me thinking and think ill have to match the hardware first - i originally thought that getting the O/S, registry etc was all I needed to replicate but of course the drivers will be unique to my hardware - hmmm still think I could kludge it but would need a custom built lappy and more patience than I have.... need to think this through

What version of Windows? Under Server 2008 there's an installation disk option "Have Disk" which allows you to load drivers before doing a restore from backups.

Though harking back to the days of floppies, it was hard enough to fathom out what the correct drivers were; they had apparently randomly generated names. I think the usefulness of this might be restricted to things like RAID arrays which need drivers loading before you can see them.

You may think that Server 2008 isn't relevant, but these folks claim that they restored Vista to dissimilar hardware:

Hardware Independent Bare Metal Restores using Windows Server 2008 Backup (wbadmin)

And we tried really hard to break it. We did all sorts of ridiculous bare metal restores - from AMD to Intel, from single core to dual core to quad core, from single to dual CPUs, RAID to no RAID and vice versa.

And it worked flawlessly each time.
Our tests - restoring to dissimilar physical hardware

Windows Vista installation tests:

* Acer Aspire 1340 Laptop (AMD) > AMD Sempron Desktop

Windows Server 2008 installation tests:

* Intel Xeon Dual CPU Dual Core Server w. RAID > AMD Phenom Single CPU Quad Core Desktop
* AMD Phenom Single CPU Quad Core Desktop > Intel Xeon Dual CPU Dual Core Server w. RAID
* <3rd test - Specs to get off Linus' Server 2008 DEV and Mel's DEV desktop >

I did manage to move Windows 7 from a VirtualBox environment to a VMware one (different hardware presented in each environment) without any problems. The first boot appeared to think about things for about 5 minutes, but the disk light flashing gave me confidence, and it came up OK.

[Support Monkey]

windows 7 using Windows sytem image manager and Windows automated installation kit should allow you to build an image for different hardware however it does appear proper complicated for something that should be so simple however its does claim to be better than the old Syprep, i would have a read up on that

[stek]

windows 7 using Windows sytem image manager and Windows automated installation kit should allow you to build an image for different hardware however it does appear proper complicated for something that should be so simple however its does claim to be better than the old Syprep, i would have a read up on that

Another plus for the traditional Unixes then - backwards compatibilty - I know that my mksysb's will restore onto any IBM pSeries kit (within reason!)

[Sysman]

Another plus for the traditional Unixes then - backwards compatibilty - I know that my mksysb's will restore onto any IBM pSeries kit (within reason!)

Same with VMS, and it had plug and play since at least as far back as the mid 80s.

OS X can do this too.

[Platypus]

You need the plus pack:
Restoring to Dissimilar Hardware with Acronis True Image Home 2010 Plus Pack | Knowledge Base

I had that.

you'll also need to download the drivers for the new laptop chipset

Easier said than done IME.

Truth is, I bought Acronis thinking what a useful feature "restore to different hardware" would be. When I actually NEEDED it, all the problems arose, such as what drivers, download from where, Acronis bitching about not being able to read the archive (apparently it's hugely sensitive to version changes), the restore boot-loader not starting up on my PC (your hardware isn't recognised/supported, email us, we'll send you 10 different versions to download and try), it was just a nightmare. I wasted days on it.

I ended up doing a clean install of XP and re-instating "My Documents", email, etc , re-installings apps.

Motto - test the whole "re-install to different hardware" function before you need it else I guarantee it won't work when you do need it.

Very dissatisfied customer here
EDIT: Although IIRC SpaceCadet rates Acronis very highly indeed. YMMV as the yanks like to say.

[Spacecadet]

Very dissatisfied customer here
EDIT: Although IIRC SpaceCadet rates Acronis very highly indeed. YMMV as the yanks like to say.

I've never had a problem with it, and I do know a couple of other people who use it and again with out an issue however I have heard so many bad things that I always add at least one negative comment:

and apparently the current version is tulip

I also have the advantage of running standard dell kit, which is probably one of the things they test on

[vetran]

do you need to transfer an image or do an unattended install?

If an image then ghost & MDT can do disks for remote install but both are fiddly and driver prone.

Both of these are only really any use if you are doing lots of these. A decent set up for multiple machine types can take weeks

If its just install windows + 1 app then an answer file & the CD is your answer. You can set an a startup program to install other apps.

Some corporate PCs have remote console setups e.g. HP ILO.

Or just talk them through installing windows, if its a retail PC they will have a recovery mode / disks designed for users. Install gotomypc and then take over. Assuming they are behind a hardware firewall they should survive the 30 minutes it takes to install M$ essentials.