Ghosting a WIN2000 Image for applications

Hi, I am having real issues!!!

Trying to find out why in WIN2000 when I ghost an image to a new machine the applications do not work due to registry keys not being copied from the original machine to the target machine. Basically this is for an Informix DB client and config. The keys that are missing are HKLU keys and they do not make it into the registry on the new machine.

I created a batch file to generate the configuration keys for the registry (Hostname, Username, PW, etc)

But the client software is not functional on the target.

Can anyone help with this? Was this understandable or was I rambling?

I have to create a deployable image for 2 operations centers and over 200 pc's and the informix client would need to be installed for EVERY user on each machine.....Way to hard and time consuming!!!

Are you copying the entire image of the drive, or are you just copying that particular program?

If you are copying the entire image, then remember to copy User.dat and System.dat, the registry is stored in those two files.

If it is just the application that your copying to multiple machines, then you need to export the registry branch responsible for that application.

If you dont know how to do this:
Run regedit,
And look under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software
or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software

Look for the name of the application, or the name of the company.
If you find it, select the branch and click Registry, Export Registry file.
Run the .reg file on the other computers.

-8trak

Are you using the sysprep utility from Microsoft before sending the ghost image to a network server?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...ep/license.asp

With it you can wipe the unique security identifier (SID) as well as any user specific information. You can also create an answer file that will fill in most of the information that is needed on reboot (domain, TCP/IP settings, etc). You will still have to provide a host name after pulling the image onto a new pc. If you are ghosting with out using either sysprep or another SID wiping utility (like ghost walker), you will run into issues with multiple computers with the same SID on your network. (this really screws up your domain).

Hope this helps.

Question? What are you using to copy it over to the image?
use Norton Utilities Ghost 2000 and it will make an exact copy of every thing on one harddrive to another harddrive, Cdrom, computer whatever.
Hope thats what you were looking for.

We use GHOST 2000 and did also use the sysprep utility from MS. Still did not work.

I am going to try the registry export that 8trak suggests!

Thanks for all the great replies.

Hopefully the registry export will do the trick.

Thanks!!!

That Registry export worked great!!!

Thanks for help guys!!!

:-)

--MityMousse