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windows 7 - Automatically Configure New Computers




My company is in the process of upgrading all of our users from old Windows XP computers to newer quad-core Win7 computers. This is a good thing - it's long overdue that we upgrade our workstations - but I now spend a ton of time configuring new computers. Is there any way to automate this process?



The steps that I go through with just about every computer:




  • Run through Win7 setup process (we do mostly HPs, so we get the stupid "The computer is personal again" thing.

  • Uninstall bloatware (norton, bing bar, roxio, etc.)

  • Install Updates

  • Add to domain & configure network settings


  • Install Office, and other company-specific applications

  • Configure important shortcuts (Outlook on task bar)



There's a couple other things that I do after that that would be nice to automate, but it's unlikely due to license keys, passwords, etc.




  • Configure Outlook

  • Pull in files/settings with easy transfer wizard

  • Map network drives




I know that it's possible to create a complete image of a computer, but how does that work with different hardware/drivers? What about Win7 license keys? If there is a way to make this work, what is the best (preferably free/open source) software out there to do this?


Answer



Don't bother with uninstalling or fixing bloatware. Just reimage the computers. In fact it's pretty easy to setup a reference image, sysprep, capture, and deploy it using WDS + MDT. See the aforementioned for various driver packages: trust me you're not the first person to think of this stuff, it's been solved already.



Profiles can be transferred with USMT. Mapped drives are best done with a logon script. Outlook 2007+ with Exchange 2007+ can use Autodiscovery. Install updates with WSUS (fully automated at install with a simple script). Keys and Activation can be managed with scripts or VAMT.



Fair warning that if you don't know about any of this stuff already you've got one heck of a learning curve to get through and you're way behind the times. If you really only have a handful of computers it probably isn't worth the time to set this stuff up now, but if it's more than a dozen it's worth the time. Also future hardware refreshes aren't nearly so painful. Bonus that many of these skills allow you to be more efficient in your routine tasks and help prevent problems.


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