So i’ve been away for a while. Been getting certs like crazy, so lots of studying. Interestingly enough, i’ve worked with a lot of imaging both on PC and Macs. I’ve been using DeployStudio for the Macs, and a combination of WDS, SCCM, and MDT for Windows (Lite Touch and Zero Touch deployments). Both work extremely well for what they are, once they are properly configured, but that’s a different story :) However, both products are based heavily on tasks to deploy the image and software. While both imaging solutions work, they do it in different ways, at least the way I was using them.
PC deployments - You image the machine with a very basic image. You install 7, sysprep it once you get it installed, and that’s your base image. Then MDT and SCCM would take over and basically run a script that would install the applications in order based on your config. It would keep installing and restarting as needed until everything was completed.
Mac deployments - The Macs seemed to be almost identical with DeployStudio. You could do a “traditional sysprep” on the machine to give you the default image. Then you create a task list to do various tasks while the machine is being imaged. For instance you would set the task to Image the machine > download/install updates > install extra software that wasn’t in the image > Bind to AD or OD. All this would be done while the machine was netboot’d to the server. After that list completed, the machine would restart and everything would be good.
So to me it seems like more mainstream imaging programs are going modular with using tasks, even down to the individual PC’s. So it would be nice to see if it would be possible to start seeing if FOG would start to incorporate this as well. That’s on my wish list, if only I could being to code that :)