got a long hard day ahead

[McBunny]

these have just turned up an there is another one on my desk already thank god im on holiday next week

 

[martynh]

9 PCs? Whats hard about that?

What needs doing to them?

 

[Clart]

i'm guessing configuring to corporate spec

 

[sargey]

Symantec ghost ftw!

 

[martynh]

They never heard of imaging?

 

[Clart]

either way your're talking at least 2 hours for imaging the machine and setting everything up. going by how long it takes us using an altiris server to push the image out etc

 

[Jonaldinho]

Ive just completed 5 labs (16 PC's min in each) for students and the PC's only came with Adode Reader and Office. lol

You gona clone a complete one? Can't beat a ghost!

 

[McBunny]

they need office putting on then the aplications each one of them needs then copying the users files setting up their outlook, downloading the updates , setting up their printers etc etc oh and i only work till 12:30 today

 

[sh33n]

either way your're talking at least 2 hours for imaging the machine and setting everything up. going by how long it takes us using an altiris server to push the image out etc

2 hours to create an image, not 2 hours to image one though!

 

[sh33n]

I
You gona clone a complete one? Can't beat a ghost!

Ghost has gone poo these days imo, I've switched to Acronis, much better than modern ghots.

 

[McBunny]

oh and 0 copies of office have turned up

 

[martynh]

Ok this what you need to do..

Un-box them, pile them on your desk,***** around abit then go home and enjoy your weekend in the knowledge you've got the rest of next week off!

 

[McBunny]

thats what i am doing

 

[Timmay]

is it just me or does it look like theres someone hiding behind the door?

 

[Rasclart]

Steal them and Ebay them

 

[martynh]

thats what i am doing

Good lad, it's the unwritten IT rule, never start something on a Friday.

 

[McBunny]

nope thats a coat stand i have some more turning up at about 12:30 tho some precision workstations with 20" tft's 4 of those and im due another optiplex 520 and a latitude 520 on monday

 

[Jonaldinho]

I
You gona clone a complete one? Can't beat a ghost!

Ghost has gone poo these days imo, I've switched to Acronis, much better than modern ghots.

Care to expand? We use an old skool edition of it and things 'appear' to be fine. Can't find it off hand just now to get the version. (Doh!)

 

[sh33n]

Ghost has gone poo these days imo, I've switched to Acronis, much better than modern ghots.

Care to expand? We use an old skool edition of it and things 'appear' to be fine. Can't find it off hand just now to get the version. (Doh!)

The old version's won't boot up and find SATA drives, or at least they don't on our new(ish) laptops.

We purchased the new version and it was a complete waste of money, it's useless!!

Do a search on it, there's plenty of other people moaning about it as well

You may well come across the same problem in the future.

 

[McBunny]

tbh cloning isnt much use in my situation i wish i could use it but its not practical everyone has different hardware and software so basically no 2 builds are the same

 

[The Hoff]

lol thats nothing lad, we had 52 Precision machines turn up last week, and 32 Optiplex systems. Need rolling out before January for a branch refresh, what fun!

We do all our imaging via an SMS OSD disc, and the SMS server recognises the various images for each spec of PC we use, then installs the base software itself.

The ballache comes from configuring each PC to spec needed, so for the Precision machines (C2D 6600's) they all need Adobe creative suite, a million font packages, and other bits of shitty undocumented software - that's the part that does my head in, luckily 90% of it is on SMS using unattended installs, but it's the repetition of doing the same tasks over..and over....and over....

I hate PC installs and imaging...it p1sses me off.

(BTW I urge you all not to use Konica Minolta for any printing equipment, they're service is fking woeful - im ready to go home already today...could throw the fking things down the stairs happily.)

 

[McBunny]

lol thats nothing lad, we had 52 Precision machines turn up last week, and 32 Optiplex systems. Need rolling out before January for a branch refresh, what fun!

We do all our imaging via an SMS OSD disc, and the SMS server recognises the various images for each spec of PC we use, then installs the base software itself.

The ballache comes from configuring each PC to spec needed, so for the Precision machines (C2D 6600's) they all need Adobe creative suite, a million font packages, and other bits of s**tty undocumented software - that's the part that does my head in, luckily 90% of it is on SMS using unattended installs, but it's the repetition of doing the same tasks over..and over....and over....

I hate PC installs and imaging...it p1sses me off.

(BTW I urge you all not to use Konica Minolta for any printing equipment, they're service is fking woeful - im ready to go home already today...could throw the fking things down the stairs happily.)

let me guess you have a departments that slarger than 1 person tho oh and that 1 person also has to support 160 users and th ephone system and mobiles

 

[The Hoff]

tbh cloning isnt much use in my situation i wish i could use it but its not practical everyone has different hardware and software so basically no 2 builds are the same

Then theres your new contingency, keeping specifications and software profiles for specific groups of users is a must in business. We try and keep to uniforms brands and models where possible, and we don't allow any installs to take place off of CD's/Internet. Everything must be fully tested and loaded onto SMS, this way no user has any meaningful custom software. Of course you will always have to manually add things such as custom Excel add-ins, printers, drive mappings, permissions, exchange details - but for the most part everything should be the same.

 

[H182]

I know how u feel just finished installing 17 new machines at my work. Wasn't much rush so I only did 1-2 a day usually. You can get the older version of ghost to work with SATA drives (7.5 at least) just needs a -noide switch then it will boot up. Oh and the drivers have to be in legacy mode in the bios.

 

[The Hoff]

Well currently the 'team' consists of:

1x First line support/Admin person - My branch.
1x Second line Analyst/Network Engineer - Me.
1x Tertiary Analyst/Systems Admin - My branch.
1x Second line analyst/Mac Specialist - London branch.
1x Services Manager - Leamington branch.

In total we support 490 users in the UK, but we also have a systems team of 6 people for stock systems and JD Edwards/Datawarehouse etc etc.

Basically we're short staffed right now, and we have a 2nd Line role open if anybodies interested, based near Leamington Spa.

 

[McBunny]

tbh cloning isnt much use in my situation i wish i could use it but its not practical everyone has different hardware and software so basically no 2 builds are the same

Then theres your new contingency, keeping specifications and software profiles for specific groups of users is a must in business. We try and keep to uniforms brands and models where possible, and we don't allow any installs to take place off of CD's/Internet. Everything must be fully tested and loaded onto SMS, this way no user has any meaningful custom software. Of course you will always have to manually add things such as custom Excel add-ins, printers, drive mappings, permissions, exchange details - but for the most part everything should be the same.

no one intalls software except me we know all the software on every pc it gets updated everytime they log on
it would be nice if i could keep one machine spec but i cant as it all depnds what their needs are and what i can get away with spending

most of these pc's are for 1 department and are replacing nt4 pc's that need to go due to the fact they find it hard to run the software they havbe just bought for them (i wasnt involved in the purchase of the software ) the companys a joke but in a lot beetter shape than it was when i joined 7 years ago