Windows Vista® Resource Kit, Second Edition

Choosing a Deployment Strategy

Most companies share a common goal: create a corporate-standard desktop configuration based on a common image for each operating system version. They want to apply a common image to any desktop in any region at any time, and then customize that image quickly to provide services to users.

In reality, most organizations build and maintain many images—sometimes even hundreds of images. By making technical and support compromises and disciplined hardware purchases, and by using advanced scripting techniques, some organizations have reduced the number of images they maintain to between one and three. These organizations tend to have the sophisticated software distribution infrastructures necessary to deploy applications—often ...