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Running a computer business inevitably means dealing with Windows Update. Be it when getting new computers fully updated before sale or to finalise a repair where we needed to re-install Windows (aka system rebuild).
On a fresh install of Windows there might be hundreds of megabytes of downloads needed to make it fully patched. Multiply this by many computers each week and the sheer volume of repetitive downloads becomes excessive.
Add to this that we have a ’standard’ build for the computers that we sell (and repair) that includes a range of additional utilities as well as some particular configuration changes.
I want all of this stuff to happen every time we work on a computer. I want it to happen the same each time so when we are doing follow-up support later we have a known standard in the build. I also don’t want to blow out the businesses Internet bill downloading everything each time we do this.
This is the first of what will be a series of articles about my solution and how you can, if you want, implement it yourself.
The key points are:
- Ensure Windows is running latest service pack.
- Ensure Windows is up to date (all relevant Windows Update patches).
- Ensure our standard utilities are installed.
- Provide a central repository for additional utilities that might be needed depending on the system.
- Provide supporting tools that might be needed to complete the build process.
- Automate all of this as much as possible.
I have pretty much achieved these goals now with our build disc. It’s a single DVD that handles service packs, updates, utilities and supporting tools. To a large extent, the use of the disc is automated (i.e. tell it you want the latest service pack installed and it figures out which operating system, figures out the service pack level, and then installs the service pack if it’s needed – but doesn’t install it if it isn’t needed).
