Question : Creating a Standard Windows Desktop Image ready for deployment

I have just created a desktop image for Windows XP to deploy to over 180 workstations within our organisation.

I have created a user on the XP image called "xp-user" I have then logged in as that user and installed and configured everything I want to have on the standard image. This includes standard apps such as office, adobe reader etc...  - I will deploy Outlook separately using the Outlook admin pak.

Once I am happy with the image, I have then logged off the machine and logged back in as a normal administrator. Once in as admin, I then go into the XP user profiles directory and copy everything in there to default user.

I then sysprep the machine and take a ghost image of it.

When I deploy the ghost image to a new machine it works fine with a couple of minor problems:

1: Additional icons appear on the desktop that I didn't want to appear - namely Media player
2: The configuration settings I have setup in certain apps like Word such as pointing templates to specific file locations have disappeared

Does anyone know how I can retain everything from what I have created in the XP-User profile so when any user logs on it keeps the settings that I have setup when using xp-user?

I know I can create GPO's for setting the Word values or even run a registry import at a login script for this but some of the other apps that I have put on this image aren't quite so straight forward to make registry settings for.

Could anyone please advise? Also could anyone recommend a decent "cheapish" tool such as ZEN Works or SMS for creating a snapshot of an image to roll out to other clients - Please note that SMS isn't within my budget!

Answer : Creating a Standard Windows Desktop Image ready for deployment

You need to make sure that the Administrator Profile isn't being copied over the Default User account, which happens during Sysprep.

Windows Media Player shortcuts can be controlled via Group Policy under Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Media Player\Prevent .... Shortcut Creation

For Office, Download and Install the Office 2003 Resource Kit, if you look inside your C:\Windows\Inf you will see a number of new ADM files for controlling Office Applications, including WorkGroup Templates, Clipart, and other general settings.  These can be imported into Group Policy, either locally or if on a domain using Group Policy Management Console.

Also to add to my first statement regarding Sysprep, add the settings for e.g. registry settings, files etc.. to be copied during the Sysprep mini setup stage, by using the $OEM$ folders and either runonce or cmdlines.txt.

Hope that helps.

Cheers