Installing Fresh Across 20 iMacs?

[Josh Kahane]

Hi

We just got 20 iMacs and need to set them all up with iWork and the latest OS updates as well as small things like specific preferences.

Anyway, without owning OSX Lion Server, is there anyway I could simply set a single computer up, image it, then copy this image to all the others? It would save a huge amount of time, would it work?

Or is there any other way of saving time here? Any suggestions welcome, thanks.

 

[Yujenisis]

The best method would be to use DeployStudio. DeployStudio has an active forum community and plenty of documentation. Once you're over the initial set up, deploying the image is fast and easy.

DeployStudio will take a little longer than the quick and dirty method using the Lion Recovery Partition to copy a bootable image of your source machine to an external hard drive.

 

[ezramoore]

Why not just install and configure one machine as desired, then use something like SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to make a bootable disk image, copy that to an External HDD and take something bootable around that can restore the image to the internal HDD around with you (if they have Lion on them you could use the recovery partition to restore your production image.

 

[Consultant]

Apple Remote Desktop $79.99.

You can remotely update, control, & monitor multiple Macs. No additional licensing fees.

You can image and duplicate, but Mac App Store titles require a license for each computer when it's not home use.