There's no hard and fast rule as to what you should do. It really comes down to what best meets your needs.
Look at how often you update or replace applications. If you have a high turnover in a particular app, then you may want to install that at build time. That way you don't have to burn a new image when you move to a new version of that applications. Do you have applications that everyone is going to use? Office would be a good example. If it's going to go onto every machine then bundling it in the image might be a good idea. Photoshop on the other hand might be better installed at build time if only a few users are going to use it. Test your deployment speeds. If the time it takes to build an image is a high priority then benchmark it. I know it is going to take a lot of time to do but it's the best way. Bottom line, decide what are the important things you need to address in your deployments. Rank them by importance and then make the call on what you want to do. Sorry it's not a concrete answer but like so much that is done in IT, it all "depends". Mike From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Beardsley, James Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2015 2:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [mssms] Plain image or fully loaded? Whats the recommended way of building an image? We're getting ready to start using OSD (previously used standalone MDT) and we're trying to decide if we go with how we've done things in the past where we load a ton of apps that everyone uses on to the image and then capture it. Or, is it recommended to simply capture a plain OS-only image and then build apps into the task sequence to install afterwards? I know that everyone probably has their own method of building an image but I'd appreciate some insight on which one you use and why... In our testing (granted this may have been due to the hardware of the OSD server vs the MDT server), we've found that the time it takes to do a plain image and then install updates and apps afterwards via TS were taking an hour or more for each computer. On the other hand, when we stuffed a bunch of apps on to the image and captured it and deployed it via MDT, we were able to image a computer in about 25-30 minutes. That's quite a big discrepancy so needless to say, I'm having trouble convincing some within our group who are responsible for imaging machines all day to go with the plain image + subsequent task sequence method. Could anyone provide links for recommendations on how to setup the image for OSD and if you have any good general OSD-related links, I'd love to see them. Thanks, James Beardsley | Firm Technology Group Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP [cid:8644FC49-D5C9-45AE-B387-04FAFC0CC7A5]<http://www.dhgllp.com/> ________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail is intended only for the addressee named above. It contains information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from use and disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, disclosure, copying, or dissemination of this transmission, or taking of any action in reliance on its contents, or other use is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please reply to the sender listed above immediately and permanently delete this message from your inbox. Thank you for your cooperation. ********************************************************** Electronic Mail is not secure, may not be read every day, and should not be used for urgent or sensitive issues
