Rollouts Made Easier

Drive Image Pro raises the bar for Windows deployment.

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.
The Drive Image Pro File Editor allows you to restore individual files from an image.

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.

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