Is It Possible To Make A Generic Image For Any Computer?

[jlacroix82]

Hello everyone, I'm an IT Technician at a company but I also do computer repair out of my house on the side. It's very common for people to bring computers to me and ask me to wipe them and "start them over". Needless to say, installing Windows, Antivirus, Defender, all the updates and etc can take quite a while.

I have Acronis and was wondering if it was possible to make a generic image for XP Home and Professional that I can just put on any computer and then put in the product key and be good to go. I do know that XP has problems with drivers from one computer to the next, but in theory I should be able to remove the drivers for the chipset, video and network and be able to seriously cut the time in half that it takes to wipe and restore a computer.

Is that possible, and is my theory sound?

 

[jlacroix82]

There shouldn't be an issue with licensing. When I do a sysprep, it usually removes the license and asks for it when the computer is re-imaged. That way, I can input the customers' OEM license key (found on the Windows sticker on the machine) so that should all be golden.

 

[jlacroix82]

Thank you.

Is there anything specific I should do to make the image as generic as possible? Would my theory of deleting the chipset drivers from the control panel suffice?

 

[jlacroix82]

Thank you! I'm hoping to give it a shot this weekend. I appreciate the help.