From Microsoft Subnet editor Julie Bort: So, I promised that I would write about the two other cool tools that I saw during a Microsoft TechEd event a few days ago. This post is dedicated to ImageX, the tool that the Microsoft “IT evangelist,” Chris Avis, spent a good deal of time demonstrating. ImageX is a command-line disk imaging tool that lets you create a single image of a Vista implementation, and then deploy that image to the hundreds of PCs that you need to cutover, regardless of the HAL (more or less). It is used in conjunction with WindowsPE, which is basically Microsoft’s answer to BartPE (Microsoft built its own “Preinstalled Environment” imaging tool so that it could offer its own “Microsoft supported” tool.). I have asked an e-mail buddy of mine and BartPE expert to inspect ImageX/WindowsPE and send me his thoughts and will report back when I hear from him. I can tell you that the 20 or so folks in the room with me at the TechEd conference, all of whom were planning on moving their companies to Vista, were suitably impressed and interested in that particular tool.
Here are more particulars. Read more about WindowsPE.
Vista ships with ImageX.
WindowsPE was created for XP, but wasn’t much used or heard of. It is a bootable CD that replaces the old MS DOS-bootable disk. It is part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK).
A step-by-step guide that shows when to use Windows PE and when to use ImageX The list of commands necessary to operate ImageX
Chirs Avis seemed to be a nice guy and he did a decent job demonstrating the technology, but watching him (an expert) still fumble with the command-line interface of ImageX did remind me why the GUI interface that made Windows so popular was invented after all.
Next up: WDS for Windows 2008 deployment.
