[Info-vax] Do you (or someone you work with) sysman on Windows?

[Chris Scheers]

Paul Sture wrote:
> On 2015-05-13, Chris Scheers <chris at applied-synergy.com> wrote:
>> Richard Maher wrote:
>>> Thanks everyone very illuminating. I hadn't appreciated the logistics.
>>>
>>> Having said that, once a hard-ware platform is chosen and some form of 
>>> base-line SOE is available then can they really not just ship images of 
>>> that single disk on all new servers (or clients)
>>>
>>> i.e. We're running all the same cores/cpus same C: drives RPMs same 
>>> memory gigabytes etc and we're going to run out 50 of these, is it 
>>> really not possible to start with a disk that has a DBMS and IIS and 
>>> Python and  .net 4.X and esoteric.DLL?
>>>
>>> But more to the point, I suppose, if Microsoft let's you stick in a 2008 
>>> R1 Server CD into a 2003 machine and hit [upgrade] why aren't more 
>>> people doing it?
>>>
>> If you are going to be configuring 50 "clones", definitely use SYSPREP.
>>
>> Get one machine configured the way you want with software and drivers, 
>> then run SYSPREP on it.
>>
>> Then clone the disks.
> 
> Norton Ghost was a well regarded tool for doing this task, but I see it's
> been retired.
> 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_%28software%29>
> 
>> When each system boots, you will go through a minimal configuration. 
>> This is basically the same setup you see when you boot a new machine out 
>> of the box.  (In fact, Microsoft calls it OOBE, Out Of the Box Experience.)
>>
>> Among things, this will ensure that each machine has a unique SID.  If 
>> you just clone disks without SYSPREP, the machines will have the same 
>> SID which can cause "interesting" issues.
> 
> The requirement for a unique SID turns out to be a myth (though SYSPREP
> does other things that you'll need). Summary here:
> 
> <http://securityvibe.net/2009/11/07/newsid-retired/>
> 
> Mark Russinovitch's original post with the full details here:
> 
> <http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2009/11/03/3291024.aspx>

Interesting.

Back in the early WinXP days, I had problems with cloned system disks 
and flaky network file access.  These problems were cleared up with 
SYSPREP.  I always assumed this was related to the SIDs, but it may have 
been some other issue.

Then again, this was using NETBEUI, which is no longer supported in any 
case.

-- 
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Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.

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