Acronis Deploy

[Ermelindo Klatt]

I was mainly the person involved in setting up the WDS, and I originally had a golden/master image created in VM Workstation just so I could load up a snapshot if I made mistakes and would recapture/resysprep.

The goal here was when Microsoft released new builds of windows 10 I thought I could load a snapshot of the VM back to before I captured it, and load up the latest build but I found that this was not the case, and had issues here.

Ended up opting to just use the WDS to install windows 10 as provided from Microsoft, and then have staff follow an SoE/SoP (Standard Operating System as Acronis calls it). We essentially had an internal SoE/SoP that we would use as the standard for any endpoint machine going out for any client unless that client had their own SoE/SoP that needed to be followed instead. (So no re-imaging never actually took place here, we just used the WDS to boot an official windows 10 image, rather than make bootable media)

All system prep is done in our workshop, and then taken onsite to either be joined to a domain and have group policies applied for final configuration, or to small companies only on a workgroup and then further manual configuration takes place.

According to the KB articles from Acronis, if you use their capture tool you really do not need to sys prep windows 10 anymore, is there any more to this, or is it really not required now? (If sys prep is not really required, this Is handy because I hated having to muck around with an unattended.xml file when I tried using WDS to configure certain windows settings that would not stay after syspreps.)

In the Master/Golden image, can I install any program I want or is it recommended to only install programs using the profile section during deployment, as I guess certain applications could become end of life, and then they would essentially pollute that Master image?

The simple thing is if you are reselling PCs or lappy using OEM or retail OS licenses, you are not allowed to deploy the OS using images. Then you should know that most manufactures OEM source or media kit usually contains the manufacturer data (trademarks, browser branding etc) and it is 100% not legal to use it on other brands and/or to sell or distribute copies of the OEM media as well (unless it came with the hardware).

Acronis Snap Deploy 6 is a comprehensive deployment solution that enables IT organizations to deploy or restore laptops and desktops quickly and easily. With version 6, the product offers enhancements and addresses issues found in the previous release.

Support for subscription licensing model. Each subscription license is a "Machine" type of license, which enables an unlimited number of deployments to the same machine during the subscription period (TTL).

The new post-deployment action allows to further customize post-deployment operations, when deployment is performed by Acronis Snap Deploy Agent running under WinPE-based bootable media. With this post-deployment action, instead of rebooting or shutting down, the machine remains in WinPE environment after deployment.

This option solves the scenarios where you need to deploy multiple different master images to different target machines simultaneously and avoid situations where any machine gets a wrong master image.

With this option enabled in the deployment task, the machines will be deployed only if they have a value for the "Task name" parameter configured before connecting to the OS Deploy Server, and this value matches the deployment task name.

It is now possible to configure automatic connection of Acronis Snap Deploy 6 bootable media to WiFi networks and perform multicast and unicast deployments. The WiFi configuration is defined when creating the bootable media via Media Builder or right in the bootable media UI.

The product can be installed as native 64-bit application, thus ensuring compatibility with Acronis Cyber Protect 15 and Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5: you can install components altogether on the same machine, including PXE server compatibility.

The machines connected to a docking station share the same MAC address which caused licensing issues when tracking deployment usage, for example for tablets. Now this problem is gone with the new licensing algorithm which tracks machine BIOS ID in addition to MAC address for truly unique identification.

The bootable media now inherits the VLAN settings from Windows where Media Builder was run to create this media. In addition, you can connect the bootable media manually to required VLAN via its native UI.Deployment from VHDXIt is now possible to deploy from Microsoft latest virtual disks format VHDX in addition to previously supported VHD.

[ASD-4922] A duplicate entry showing the same MAC address for a machine may appear in the machines list if the machine had default BIOS ID equal to "00020003-0004-0005-0006-000700080009" (default ID set by hardware manufacturer).

[ASD-4781] Management Console crashes when selecting a master image captured from a Linux-based system which contains LVM volumes (image created by Acronis Cyber Protect 15/Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud), instead of showing proper error message.

Solution: To run an application or a script automatically under the operating system, use the Files to transfer setting to copy the file, the script, or the link to the script to the Startup folder of the target machine, such as the folder C:\Users\USER1\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

For a couple of reasons, using a policy and script is not working well for us to deploy the Acronis agent. I see two other options - Intune as a LOB application, or via the Acronis Cloud console via the Microsoft tenant integration.

I have a ticket opened with support. I was hoping to find some input here as well. Has anyone been successful in using either of these methods to deploy the agent? If so, I would be grateful if you would share some tips!

I have successfully been able to deploy via scripts. When you go to add a device for a customer in Acronis, it brings up a list of installers. Go all the way to the bottom and generate a registration token.

Acronis unifies data protection and cybersecurity to deliver integrated, automated cyberprotection that solves the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of the modern digital world. With flexible deployment models that fit the demands of services providers and IT professionals, Acronis provides superior protection for data, applications, and systems with innovative next-generation antivirus, backup, disaster recovery, and endpoint protection management solutions.

AOMEI Image Deploy (AID) is a free image deployment software that allows you to easily deploy OS to multiple PCs or servers. It is made for enterprise, small business companies, educational institutions, government organization, and individual, etc.

You do not have to worry about how many images you want to deploy or how many workstations or PCs. It is completely free while other Acronis Snap Deploy alternatives may charge you $1,000 to deploy 50 computers.

With it, you can easily deploy system image to multiple client computers simultaneously, but you need to set IP address and network for each computer. It will take a lot of time. Besides, the deployed computer may fail to boot if the hardware of it is not exactly the same as the computer you create system image on it.

To avoid these issues, it's suggested to try AOMEI Image Deploy Technician or the integrated AOMEI Image Deploy in AOMEI Backupper Technician or TechPlus edition and deploy image to dissimilar hardware machines. The second one is recommended, because it not only supports Legacy BIOS mode, but also UEFI mode.

Here you will use AOMEI Image Deploy Free edition to deploy system image to multiple computers. Besides, you need to create a system image backup or disk backup on a computer without SID using free backup software, AOMEI Backupper Standard, for example.

Since every computer has an unique SID (Security Identifier) when you install Windows on it and using the same SID on multiple computers will cause conflicts. And you need to boot into Windows PE immediately after remove SID, otherwise your computer will create a new one. Thus, the overall steps are below:

Then, please ensure all the computers stay in the same LAN and client computers are support PXE boot or network boot. And refer to the following steps to deploy Windows 10 system image to multiple computers:

Best free Acronis Snap Deploy alternative - AOMEI Image Deploy can help you deploy image to multiple computers and boot from it. But if you don't want to waste time doing follow-up work after deploying image, try AOMEI Image Deploy Technician. It supports batch presenting IP addresses automatically and performing dissimilar hardware restore to avoid boot failure.

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