Ghost Solution Suite

I'm looking to set up a server to image any machine on our network on demand.
for example, if a workstation needs a reimage, I want to reboot it off of the network, and pull a fresh image down onto it - without having to set up a session or initiate a transfer on the server itself.

This could be if a single computer needs a fresh image, or if I unbox 50 new machines and want to multicast an image,

I've got the PXE network boot working pretty well, and I have set up a Ghostcast server, but I'm hoping to find a way that's a little more 'hands off'.

Maybe this isn't possible, but I feel like it should be.

Any ideas?

Currently we're using GSS 1.1, but 2.0 should be coming in soon. Clients are all on Windows XP or 2k, and the server will be running on 2003.

Thanks for any help you can provide! :)

With regards to reimaging a single computer without going to the server, there's a few ways I've found in accomplishing this.

If you have console installed and every workstation has ghost client installed, you could set up a clone task for each individual workstation which can be initated by the client workstation. This isn't practical with a large number workstations but thought I'd mention it.

You mentioned you have PXE network boot working and dont want to go to the server machine before every reimage to set up a task. What I've found handy is on the server machine, first set up a batch file to execute a GhostCast session that only accepts one client with the proper image selected. Then set this batch file as a scheduled task.

Next time a client machine wants to be reimaged, in windows you can map a network drive to the server machine, open up 'Scheduled Tasks' and run the batch task. That will start the GhostCast Server on the server machine waiting for a client to connect. Then boot into PXE and connect to this session.

Another option which doesn't use a GhostCast Server is to use the Drive Mapping Boot Package in Ghost Boot Wizard. When you want to reimage a machine, boot of this to map a network drive to the Ghost executable on the server machine and restore an image.

I'm not sure if this is as 'hands off' as you want but hope it helps.

Cheers,
Bruce