Hi mmarmori.
Step 1
Do a fresh OS install. After that, install the altiris agent, programs, patches, etc. As you are creating a hardware independent image, don't install any driver. The only driver you need to install is the network if the Windows not install it automatically.
Step 2
When your image be ready, create a task called 'Prepare for Image Capture", configure it with the OS type, credentials and send to the machine. This task will clean all the Altiris keys and also run the sysprep to clean all the information that can cause duplicity when you deploy the image.
*If you want deploy the image with AV installed, you have to run a process to clean the AV keys before the task. Each AV have your own process. Bellow I'm attaching the process to clean the SEP keys.
https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.HOWTO54706.html
Step 3
Create a task called "Create Image" to capture your image. As this image going to be an image to deploy to other machines, select the optin "Disk Image" in image type option.
Step 4
To deploy the image, with the Windows PE running, use the task called "Deploy Image". This task will deploy the image to your machine. Also don't forget to check the DeployAnywhere option. Deployanywhere is the responsible to input the drivers in the image when the image deploy ends.
I'm attaching more two articles that can helps you with the entire process.
Creating and Deploying a Windows disk image - https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.HOWTO93813.html
Hardware Independent Imaging with DeployAnywhere - https://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/hardware-independent-imaging-deployanywhere
Regards,