@george1421 thanks for continuing to provide such detailed information.

I believe the best way to learn is to do, so i am going to go shopping for an SSD (and perhaps some RAM to be safe). Once I have everything in place, I am going to do a test run on our machines as well as those of an associate just to see what happens when the network changes. Following this, I will check back with you if you don’t mind to go through the results.

@george1421 Thank you for taking the time to provide such a comprehensive response.

Starting with the legal problem, the nature of Microsoft to make things more difficult than they need to be… I figure that most people/entities tend to buy computers with Windows preinstalled so as to ensure legality (OEM), so I have so far resigned my mind to having to create images for each machine. Where I encounter those with VLK then the golden image approach would be applied. This should be a way to ensure the applications on the respective machines are good to go. Yes it is going to be tedious but it is what it is until the clients see the value to them (if any) by going VLK. Correct me if my logic is wrong.

The technical complication as you have detailed it is very interesting. Firstly, putting in a dedicated machine on each LAN will initially have to be at our expense as these guys will need to see the benefits in action first. This a major reason for going the route of a laptop we already own that was heading to a closet anyway. Load a Linux desktop to the old girl and she would continue to have a productive life. It can also be used in other ways as a Tech Support machine. From what you have detailed, there is a known work around for any DNS issues so it could move from LAN to LAN without much challenge. They Type C connection would be a problem for this old girl as she doesn’t have a port. So that bring me back to good old USB - any advice to help address that? Also would greatly appreciate if you would advise further on the network modifications involved to properly boot target computers for imaging.

Thanks again for the help thus far.

Greetings All,
I am hoping this post is in the right place. I have been looking for a way to enhance our service offering to our clients (especially schools) by reducing the time it would take to reload software (mainly Windows and the various aplications they use) and it has been suggested that FOG would be the solution I am looking for. This being the first time I would be using this project, I felt it best to ask the experts if it can work.

I have an old HP Probook 4530s (8GB120GBSSD/Core i3) that I intended to convert to Linux (Fedora or Ubuntu Desktop) with the end of Windows 10. The idea is to use FOG on this machine with an external drive for each client to store their machine images. I am figuring this approach would allow each client to have a base image of each of their machines all of which would be stored on media which they can keep. Whenever there is the need to reload a mahine(s), we can just carry in this machine, connect their external drive and we should be off to the races. Based on my understanding of changes to Windows, the fact that each machine would have its own image on the external drive, this approach would also remove the need for the client to have Volume Licensed software and there should be no issues with Windows 11.

Can this work as I have it in mind? Are there any complications I should be aware of?