Automated Ghost Image

Ok I've been reading the Norton's Ghost help files but, finding this a little difficult, so I was hoping some of you could shed some little on this for me.

I'm currently working in a Internet cafe, we like are users to have full access to stuff, but this results in virus etc, so we have a ghost image that we use when the machine messes up.

I was wondering if there is a way so when you turn on the PC in the morning the computer will just automatically ghost its self, so everyday we have a new ghost on the machines, and if so how hard is this to do?

Thanks in advance

We use something similar for rebuilding workstations that have been messed up by the user. We have a bootable floppy that loads the TCP/IP stack, maps a drive to an image server then invokes a ghost restore using ghost's command line options. Then finally it waits using the batch file pause command before rebooting. So the use in your environment would be to pop the floppy into each machine in the morning and switch on. Then go back when the ghost restore has finished, eject the disk and hit any key to reboot. This is perhaps a little more manual than you are hoping for but it works and will give you a start.

Anybody know an even better method?

thanks for the quick reply, do you know a good website where I can read up on making batch files ?

we give me somthing to do instead of playing WoW hehe

Maybe something like Deepfreeze would work for you. A similar program is used at the school I go to. It will allow you to install or change anything on the PC but when it is rebooted it returns to a default state.


www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp

www.computerhope.com/batch.htm gives a basic intro on batch files. Also you can look under the help in Windows for command line commands; most can be run in batch files also. Probably the easies way to start is to get hold of a 'real' Windows 98 boot disk and customise it

another (additional) suggestion would be to set the machines to PXE boot (if they support it) and avoid the floppy all together. Then, anytime the machines get rebooted they will boot from a network server that has the batch files and scripts to load a new Ghost image down to the PC.