Mar 19 2009
In part 1 I offered an overview of my goals for creating the build disc we use here. In part 2, I’m taking a more detailed look at service packs and how this got automated and streamlined.
My goals for handling service packs were:
Mar 19 2009
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.
