Ghosting/Duplicating software for Vista

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 8:07 am

I work in IT, and my place of employment is moving to Vista late in 2008. We are starting to research ghosting software compatible with Vista.

Currently we are using the DOS based Norton Ghost 8.0 for our XP images. It works great, we use BART DOS boot discs to map our network drives where the images are and create/restore images. Old school but it gets the job done.

Unsurprisingly Ghost 8.0 doesn't work too well capturing/restoring Vista images. I have experimented with 12.0 and am not too impressed. I have also looked into ImageX that comes on the WinPE download from MS, but it really doesn't function the way we need it to. (We have custom software/printers/profiles on each image depending on the machine's role)

Does anyone have any recommendations? Something you use where you work?

Thanks for the assistance in advance.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:50 am

vista does have tools that let you create custom install dvds, which sounds more useful to what you are trying to do.

if all else fails, there is always DD.

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:45 pm

DD?

You mean this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix) (kromedit: link fixed =) )

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:48 pm

yep.

totally future proof too, no need to worry about weather or not you can read the file system, just as long as the partition is readable.

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 3:09 pm

This will create images as well?

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 4:10 pm

Yes, bit accurate dumps too.

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 2:42 pm

Nice our ISO hooked me up with a Linux Live CD with this. Gonna play around with it.