What is Sysprep?
“Sysprep” is a shortened term for Microsoft’s “system preparation” tool. Enlightened? Hardly. My understanding of this tool is that it clears parts of the Windows registry, and resets windows itself so that it can be used for things like the Vaio Recovery CDs that Jem uses to restore her laptop when it screws up. It also allows Windows to do a “mini setup” when it’s restarted, that can help the same “image” of Windows to run on different PC’s without completely reinstalling.
Why might I want to use it?
As I say above, Sysprep allows you to speed up installation of Windows XP/2000 onto multiple PC’s. It allows you to create a “master” installation the normal way, with all your programs and settings on it. Just using Ghost on its own would allow you to image this install, but you’d likely only be able to use it on the machine you made it on in the first place.
If you have several PC’s you need to all be installed in exactly the same way as that “master” PC, you need to run Sysprep on the “master” PC before you make the image with Ghost, to enable it to adapt to the different hardware in the different machines.
What advantages does this give?
Imagine you have..say 10-12 PC’s you need to install XP/2000 on in an identical way, and want to spend as little time as possible doing so. Using a Sysprep’d Ghost image, you can “duplicate” the master PC to another machine in as little as a few minutes, down to the smallest detail. No risk of missing a program, no chance of forgetting to set certain preferences. Just image it, and it’s done. Compare this to installing XP “Normally”, and then Office, and then every little program and setting you want, on 10 machines in a row…a few hours at least, and a lot harder.
We use this at work-we have 200+ PC’s, and it’s often faster to re-image a “damaged” PC than to start it and attempt recovery of it using “normal” tools. What would you rather do-spend 20 minutes removing spyware and viruses, or 7 minutes re-imaging it back to a useable “good” state? I know my answer.