Ghost & the UIUUniversal Imaging Utility is Used to Greatly Simplify Cloning Process in Environment with Disparate Hardware I am the Information and Technology director at Independence High School in Glendale, Arizona. I am responsible for over 700 computers in classrooms and labs. My job is to manage these PCs in a somewhat "hostile" environment, namely 2,000 teenage users. Although imaging software has made the job of desktop management possible, it has fallen far short of making it easy. I have 17 different hardware configurations. And this is only on the XP machines; I quit counting the 98s! For every machine that comes in I perform the following tasks:
That process gets the computers out to the users. Unfortunately, the image is already out of date by this time. Every time I need to perform any type of update, I have to start over. Knowing that high school students are my users forces me to format and install a clean OS on a regular basis. To stay current, I would need to do this on a weekly basis for each of the 17 configurations. Needless to say, I do not stay that current. I am reactive, rather than proactive. When a lab develops problems, I create a new image and do a multicast. Vacations are often used to create new images. Desktop management takes up an inordinate amount of time- more time than I have since I am also responsible for student and staff needs, curriculum integration, Netware server maintenance and trouble shooting every technology problem on campus. Fortunately I love what I do! Universal Imaging Utility has made desktop management truly manageable! Having one image for all my XP computers has suddenly freed me from my image nightmare. I no longer have to keep an image for every configuration, I no longer have to find a place to store all of these images, I no longer need to keep track of which computers need which image and blessedly, I only have to update ONE image to stay current. I have met with my district Technology Director and discussed the magnitude of savings offered by UIU. In my estimation, I now spend approximately 40% of my time on imaging issues. Other school Directors in my district spend as much as 75% of their time on these tasks. UIU will drastically reduce this expenditure of time by as much as three-fourths. Requests for compensation during vacations can be eliminated, requests for assistance by district personnel can be eliminated and most importantly, Directors will have the time to truly serve the needs of students. Creative juices will begin to flow again because the fatigue of being overburdened is gone. Ghosting new images is now just a minor task to be done on a regular basis. UIU is extremely easy to use. It takes mere minutes to install. It truly works. I tried to use Microsoft's Sysprep but it was very confusing and frustrating. I never did manage to get it to function properly. When I read that you had to edit the sysprep.inf file included with UIU, all my skepticism rose to the top. The mere word "sysprep" was enough to turn me off. But this was a simple process of filling in the blanks about my organization. I was absolutely amazed when it worked on the first try. As I continued to experiment with my new UIU image on various hardware configurations, I ran head first into the Broadcom NetXtreme. Before I had time to e-mail Big Bang support on UIU's failure to handle the hated Broadcom, they phoned me with instructions to download the newest version of the utility. I was assured that this included all the necessary drivers to keep the NetXtreme happy. With some trepidation, I tried the new version. And sure enough, UIU functioned perfectly! Included with UIU is also a "refesh" setup that allows me to easily keep my master image up to date. Universal Imaging Utility sounded too good to be true. I must admit I had many doubts at the start but I am totally committed now. UIU actually does what it proclaims to do. I refuse to go back to life without UIU. In my opinion, it is the single most important breakthrough in desktop management and imaging to come along in a long while. IT directors, all over the world, will be dancing in their labs. Whether it is from jubilation or disbelief or both really doesn't matter! Nan Cusick About the Universal Imaging Utility The UIU is developed by Big Bang LLC, a Milwaukee, WI-based software training, consulting and development company and pioneer of hardware-independent imaging. Big Bang has partnered with Binary Research International, Inc., of Glendale, WI and its English subsidiary - Binary Resource (UK) Ltd. Binary, a developer and provider of IT Training and a Distributor of software, is best known as being part of the company that developed Ghost, the world's first software cloning utility. Learn more about Big Bang on the web at www.UIUforYou.com.
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