Deploy Switch alpha 12 on school network

TonyM1

Hi

I'm a technician at a primary school which has just taken delivery of 60 Alpha 12 notebooks.

The problem I have is that I dont know how I can image them and deploy them across the network.

I have tried using a USB to Ethernet adaptor which allows me to start the WDS process from the server but it just keeps rebooting.

I have tried using the factory image on USB but I need to incorporate the other apps and settings.

Can anyone help please?

Pxhorne

Honestly, your best bet is to create an image using a 3rd party software. You'd need access to 2 usb ports though. One to use a flash drive to boot from, the other to use as storage to image to.

 

The only other option I could think of is to use Windows Backup to create an image of the device, then once you restore said backup, you'd have to initailize windows before connecting it to a network. So you'd go to C:\Windows\System32\SysPrep and run sysprep.exe. On the box that pops up, leave the default options and just click "Generalize". That will reset the system ID so your network doesn't see the exact same device multiple times on the network.

 

Other than those 2 options, I don't know.

TonyM1

Thanks for your reply it makes perfect sense.

 

What 3rd party software do you use.

Pxhorne

Don't know why I Didn't realize you responded. Either way though, I use a program called Paragon to create images. Boot via USB then use the image stored on a extrenal HDD to image. I actually had a 128gb i3 switch alpha 12 and it got replaced with a i5 version, and I was able to use a backup I'd created to "reimage" the i5 version. Works flawlessly.