Sources for system builds for XP

July 8, 2005 8:43 AM

Are there any sources for software builds for home/student systems running XP?

My buddies in IT departments often rely on creating a stable suite of programs that have been tested to work properly with each other as well as with the resident OS. Since I am starting law school, I am putting a high value on being able to recover my laptop quickly from any potential catastrophic failure.

I plan on backing up my save files from my laptop and my desktops "Production" HD to a secondary data storage HD also in the desktop nightly. With the data saves, I will be very comfortable using Ghost to re-image the laptop or the "production" HD whenever needed.

posted by BeerGrin to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Best answer: Check out this unattended xp installation guide. I've been using it here at work, and it's excellent. I'd definitely recommend it over ghosting.
posted by null terminated at 9:00 AM on July 8, 2005

That is totally sweet, nt.
posted by grouse at 9:14 AM on July 8, 2005

The only problem I have with unattended installations is that some applications will not install unattended and muck the whole thing up. Many will, but those using non-standard installation tools are the killer. Plus, it takes a lot longer to install everything from scratch again than reimage a disk. Think about it.
posted by devilsbrigade at 11:07 AM on July 8, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks NT, I'll read that over in detail later.
posted by BeerGrin at 12:06 PM on July 8, 2005

True devilsbrigade, but every application we need has had silent switches. Also, the unattended installations allow for different hardware configurations.
posted by null terminated at 2:28 PM on July 8, 2005