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Hans said: "Read the linked article. To summarize, Microsoft, yes Microsoft, is recommending that companies have processes in place to rebuild Windows systems from scratch. As if Windows administrators need yet another thing to add to their job descriptions!" A good Windows (or Linux) support group should be able to rebuild a PC from scratch in about 5-8 minutes. One place I worked had 2 options when you rebooted your PC. One was to boot Windows, the other was to reimage the machine. It eliminated a bunch of support calls. The end user could, at their discretion, just reimage the machine. Even for little things, if they mucked up the settings on their PC they just rebooted, reimaged and voila! back to normal in 8 minutes. Worked like a charm especially at 2:00 am when no support personnel were awake. This solution works whether the PC is Windows or Linux. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.
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Microsoft Says....
Chuck Ackerman wrote: > One place I worked had 2 options when you rebooted your PC. One was > to boot Windows, the other was to reimage the machine. It eliminated > a bunch of support calls. The end user could, at their discretion, > just reimage the machine. Even for little things, if they mucked up > the settings on their PC they just rebooted, reimaged and voila! back > to normal in 8 minutes. Worked like a charm especially at 2:00 am > when no support personnel were awake. Wow, unless I'm missing something, that's a horrible option! How are service packs handled? Microsoft Critical Updates? Anti-virus updates? iSeries Access Service Packs? Application Software updates? They can never add any software other than what's on the image? Maybe I just haven't been at a large enough company to see how this operates and not result in a lot more work. Bill -
Microsoft Says....
I hinted at this before: It always amazes me how much is expected of IBM in general and of the iSeries in particular, while there are people who go out of their way to apologize for things that are fundamental design flaws in MS software. The kind of crap that goes on in the MS world simply should not be allowed to happen. Such as rootkit exploits. Why in heavens name should any program be allowed to modify an O/S kernel? And people are happy to accept that? Have a nice day! HansComment
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Bill, Here are some details about imaging a PC... - All PCs have the exact same hardware and drivers. That's why companies buy Dell's Optiplex instead of Inspiron (consumer). The Optiplex models will never change any of the internal hardware for the life of the model. Corporations can guarantee that an Optiplex model purchased today will be identical to the same model purchased a year from now. Inspirons have the "latest and greatest" so images are almost useless. They do this with Inspirons to satiate the consumer's desire to have the newest hardware. - An image can be sent to Dell and Dell will install that image at manufacture time. - Service Packs, applications, etc. are periodically placed in the image. Anti-virus is updated (via push) daily or at reimage time. - All user data is stored on a network share, never on the local machine. - As a general rule users are NEVER permitted to install software on their machine. It's a bad practice to let users install software because there are two hazards. 1) It might install malware that could infect the entire business. 2) Licensing issues. How does one know that the installed software is properly licensed? We must account for all licenses on all PCs. If it's not purchased by the company it can't be installed on a company PC. While the use of imaging isn't a perfect solution, it saves a heap of time and effort. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "Bill"Comment
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Microsoft Says....
Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible. (Related Slashdot discussion) Read the linked article. To summarize, Microsoft, yes Microsoft, is recommending that companies have processes in place to rebuild Windows systems from scratch. As if Windows administrators need yet another thing to add to their job descriptions! The article links to another interesting editorial: Why is anyone still using Internet Explorer? Have a nice day! HansComment
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You really nailed it with "While the use of imaging isn't a perfect solution, it saves a heap of time and effort." The reality of Windows is that you are better off periodically reinstalling the computer, from scratch, from time to time. You don't want to do this daily. You really don't want to do it at all! However, once every year or two, it often becomes necessary. One of the key reasons this happens is that installing software in Windows is a fairly reliable process (errors are seen and corrected quickly). However, uninstalling software is much less common, and frequently leaves useless/obsolete components behind. In addition, the system tends to slow down over time. There are many reasons for this, but the acumulation of junk over time is a big contributing factor.Comment
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