Reimage several of the same model PC by copying the hard disk

Posted by Tim Lehner on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Tim Lehner
Published on 2012-06-22T13:27:36Z Indexed on 2012/06/22 15:18 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 255

Filed under:

windows-7

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install

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clone

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microsoft-licensing

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enterprise-deployment

I have several of the same machine (Dell Precision T3500) that originally came with Windows 7 Pro (there is a Windows 7 Pro OA product key sticker on top of each one). These were initially downgraded to XP by a former IT colleague, but are now back in the pool of unused machines. I am looking to format and install Windows 7 Pro on one of them using the latest official Win7 installer ISO with SP1 and then clone the hard drive to the other machines.

The questions then, are:

Does this even make sense, or is there a better way to do this considering I'm only doing it to 6 machines?
Does this jive with MS licensing (we are the original purchaser of the machines, and thus, presumably, the license holder...but I'm no expert)?
Is it possible to apply the individual 25-char product keys to the cloned machines after cloning?
How far can I go in the config process (installing corporate standard apps and such) before I have to clone to the other machines considering the licensing/key questions?

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