Is this non-IT friendly?

[Devin Sheets (ALPHA SOUND)]

I run a software company but am not myself an IT oriented person. I'm wondering if this program is easy enough to figure out how to use, specifically for the following situation:

My company distributes little NUC style computers to our clients, the machines come with a custom disk image which basically has the entire machine stripped down to nothing, it just runs one audio application with some audio drivers and we've gone through and tweaked the OS preferences a bunch. We originally used Clonezilla to make and then deploy the image to all outgoing units, injecting an OA3 license on the machines running Windows 11 IoTe. But if someone out there screws up their machine by deleting our apps and data or downloading a bunch of their own crap, we need a simple field-deployable way of setting the machine. Clonezilla is too much to ask them to do, we just need a .exe file they click on and it does everything for them. Also, if at some point we want to deploy a completely different set of files and apps/drivers and OS configs, we need this .exe file to delete all the existing stuff on the machine we don't want to be there and install all the new stuff we want to be there.

First, will this program accomplish what we're looking to do? Second, can I do this myself with some reasonable learning curve or do I really need to hire a specialized IT person for this task?

[Jernej Simončič]

On Tuesday, June 3, 2025, 16:26:58, Devin Sheets (ALPHA SOUND) wrote:

My company distributes little NUC style computers to our clients, the machines come with a custom disk image which basically has the entire machine stripped down to nothing, it just runs one audio application with some audio drivers and we've gone through and tweaked the OS preferences a bunch. We originally used Clonezilla to make and then deploy the image to all outgoing units, injecting an OA3 license on the machines running Windows 11 IoTe. But if someone out there screws up their machine by deleting our apps and data or downloading a bunch of their own crap, we need a simple field-deployable way of setting the machine. Clonezilla is too much to ask them to do, we just need a .exe file they click on and it does everything for them. Also, if at some point we want to deploy a completely different set of files and apps/drivers and OS configs, we need this .exe file to delete all the existing stuff on the machine we don't want to be there and install all the new stuff we want to be there.

For this type of OS deployment, I'd suggest you look at making custom Windows install images (since your best bet for getting the machine into usable state is to just wipe and reinstall the OS). Microsoft offers a toolkit for this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10333 (while the web page says "Vista family", this applies to every Windows version from Vista onwards).

 

The basic idea is that you set up one computer the way you want it, then capture the installed OS (with all applications) into image, and prepare a bootable install media which will then apply this image to new computers. You can then also distribute these install images to your clients as necessary.

 

-- 
< Jernej Simončič ><><><><>< https://eternallybored.org/ >

The new hardware will break down as soon as the old is disconnected and out.
       -- Goodin's Law of Conversions