Rollouts Made Easier
Drive Image Pro raises the bar for Windows deployment.
- By Mike Gunderloy
- November 01, 2000
If you’ve ever had to set up Windows for an entire department,
you know what a nuisance it can be. It takes hours to
install Windows, service packs, applications, network
drivers, and so on. And then you need to repeat the same
steps on several hundred other machines. That’s when you’ll
appreciate Drive Image Pro 3.01, PowerQuest’s entry in
the Windows deployment market.
The idea behind Drive Image Pro is simple: You create
one reference computer, capture an image of its hard drive
to a file, and use Drive Image Pro to duplicate that image
on other computers. But be warned—while the concept is
simple, the actual execution tends to be complex. Drive
Image Pro helps you out, though, by using a wizard-style
interface to make that process easier.
The product also offers numerous amenities, including:
- PowerCasting, which uses TCP/IP multicasting to simultaneously
broadcast the disk image to multiple computers.
- Image compression, which minimizes image file size
and makes installations even faster. SmartSector imaging
also helps with this by duplicating only the sectors
actually used.
- SIDChanger, which allows you to use Drive Image Pro
to install Windows NT images without SID conflicts.
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| The Drive Image Pro File Editor
allows you to restore individual files from an image.
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In addition, Drive Image Pro ships with several add-on
programs to help with deployment issues. These include
PowerQuest’s well-known PartitionMagic, designed for partition
management, and BootMagic, which simplifies the process
of running multiple operating systems on the same computer.
There’s also an image file editor, which allows you to
restore individual files from an image, plus make other
changes to the image.
To purchase Drive Image Pro, visit PowerQuest’s Website.
You can also download a trial version there.
About the Author
Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, is a former MCP columnist and the author of numerous development books.