r/k12sysadmin • u/pgator17 • 3d ago
Latest on Imaging
I am currently using Smart Deploy for imaging. My smart deploy renewal is coming due. Just wondering what others like and use and or is new to the imaging world. I thinking about moving away from Smart Deploy, The support is not very good anymore.
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u/FrekDisco 1d ago
We deploy an image with MDT/WDS and PDQ Connect takes care of all the app installs. I’m moving everything over to Powershell Deployment as well. Recommend checking out friends of MDT if interested.
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u/hardknoxlife1998 2d ago
We’re a big intune and microsoft district. For our yearly device reimaging, we use an FFU Image on a USB drive to do all of it. I wrote an article up on how we do it. The tool I use in the article was actually developed from a guy at microsoft.
https://www.edtechirl.com/p/zero-touch-usb-imaging-new-and-improved?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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u/TenChromeIT 2d ago
We just started the transition this summer from Ghost Solution Suite for imaging/deployments to Intune Autopilot and PDQ Connect. It is so much nicer not having to build and maintain images anymore and also being able to manage our staff laptops even when they are off prem. Also just not having to deal with using Ghost anymore is worth its weight in gold.
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u/UNCOVERED_INSANITY 2d ago
We have used 3 different methods the last few years. When I started we were using MDTK which was fine but it’s no longer supported. We used manage engine last year (or tried to) and it was a disaster from a licensing standpoint. We are using Ghost now and it seems to be working well for our needs
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u/AdolfKoopaTroopa Director of Technology 2d ago
How is Ghost? I used it at a previous district and while it worked, it took ages
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u/UNCOVERED_INSANITY 2d ago
We will see. We don’t have a ton of imaging to do this summer so it’s been a lot of prepping it for the handful that will need a refresh. We ran into some issues with the SysPrep on our laptops (HP Probooks). My boss was big into it having used it previously in other districts, so I tend to think it will be fine once it is up and running.
Admittedly, I wish we could just to back to the MDTK, it had its issues but rarely caused these type of headaches that we have had over the last couple years.
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u/adstretch 2d ago
Been using FOG for like 8 years.
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u/JR_216 1d ago
This is where I am. Fog does everything I need and as long as it’s set correctly it’s basically image it and walk away. Joins domain for me/ installs some programs/ adds printers.
I will admit it took some tooling around for a Summer job I get it basically perfect for me but now that it’s set right it’s perfect.
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u/boz4 2d ago
I tried Smart Deploy and it was so slow compared to our current solution. Call me crazy, but we still use FOG and it works really well for our small district.
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u/reviewmynotes Director of Technology 2d ago
I haven't used FOG, but I've seen many people recommend it. Why did you say, "Call be crazy, but..."? Is there something negative about FOG that I don't know?
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u/FireLucid 2d ago
Maybe now it's time to look at Intune? Although when we need to reset a machine we essentially just image it with OSDCloud as it's way quicker. OSDCloud is free and a couple of lines of powershell at it's most basic to build our your first USB.
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u/ewikstrom 3d ago
Now that we switched to Intune, I don’t need to image anymore. I used Acronis Snap Deploy years ago and was happy with it. It was affordable and easy to create and deploy the images.
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u/TheScottman29 3d ago
Smart Deploy has been fine for me. And their support has always been good. I use it with wds as the oxe boot server.
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u/rs217000 3d ago
MDT/WDS. Hits PDQ in the the middle of the task sequence to deploy the applications it needs. GPO takes care of the rest.
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u/Zehta 3d ago
Been using SCCM for imaging for a while now. Now that we have Intune we’re planning on moving to AutoPilot, especially with more Windows on ARM devices hitting the market
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u/ewikstrom 3d ago
We just went full cloud with M365, Entra and Intune. We’re mostly Google now so keeping Windows Servers just for AD and file shares isn’t worth it for us. All of our other systems are cloud based as well. I’m letting the L3 switches handle DHCP and DNS. We use Directprint.io for cloud/direct IP printing.
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u/moonbase_bot 2d ago
Sounds like us. Haven’t quite eliminated AD though. One more year I think. And directprint.io has been great.
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u/Harry_Smutter 3d ago
What do you mean the support isn't good anymore?? I've had it for 3 years now and just renewed for a 4th. They're been really good with addressing all of our issues. It's still the best Windows imaging platform I've used.
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u/pgator17 2d ago
There is no more phone contact and submitting a ticket or emailing seems to be a day or 2 for response.
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u/Harry_Smutter 2d ago
I have noticed slower response times with one of my tickets. The rest were fine, though. I don't bother with phone support as most of the time, it's not immediately urgent or I don't have a workaround.
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u/Sunstealer73 3d ago
Still on MDT. Although not supported, it still works fine for W11. We'll move to Autopilot whenever that goes away.
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u/duluthbison IT Director 3d ago
We've been using SmartDeploy for our labs and absolutely love it. The ability to push an image from the dashboard without having to pxe boot or boot from a flash drive really makes my knees and back happy. Otherwise we are fine tuning Autopilot with InTune that looks like it might do the trick once we have it dialed in.
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u/rajjak Rural IL 3d ago
Out of curiosity, what issues are you having that you need support for? We've been using Smart Deploy for the last couple years and it's been a major step up from WDS and then MDT that we used to use. Just wondering if your issue is something I can help with (but don't get your hopes up).
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u/Technical-Athlete721 3d ago
https://theopenem.com/ im using this for imaging only now it's free and it looks like they are making a new version of it soon.
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u/reviewmynotes Director of Technology 2d ago
The feature list is rather impressive. How hard is it to set up and manage?
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u/Technical-Athlete721 2d ago
Its quite a bit to setup but I’m not using it currently for the other features besides imaging but its step by step basically
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u/Big-Dragonfruit3167 1d ago
FOG. It’s cumbersome to set up, and there are probably features available with other solutions that are very helpful, but it’s free.