Recently a new version came out called Rescuezilla which is made with a combination of Ubuntu and Clonezilla to create a boot disk that includes a clean easy to use GUI to make disk imaging and cloning easy for an average user. Unfortunately they stopped devolopment on this and it would not work on my newer computers. A while back I found Redo Backup and Recovery was a good choice when backing up an entire hard drive instead of a partition. I've also used Clonezilla, but I didn't like using it due to confusing menus which lead to problems when restoring images (I found the backup process clearer to me than the restore process). I still use it today because the read write speed is the fastest possible given that it does not read/write the blank space (I turn off compression to make it faster yet). After searching the to ends of the internet in 2008 I found linux boot disks with Partimage, and found it to be the fastest and easiest way to back up a partition. Later I started fixing my friends computers and found it ridiculous that I had to buy a license for everyone's individual computer if I wanted to make a backup for them. It was well worth the money for one computer (back when a person could only afford to own a single computer). It made reloading Windows, drivers, games ect very quick and painless. I first discovered Norton Ghost back in 1999, and it was a life saver at the time given how often Windows 98 gave me the old blue screen of death when I installed new software. I think many people who used to use Ghost back in the day will find this Keynote Presentation on Features in latest version very interesting. It used to be a gold standard and now it has fallen out of use.įor those that continue to use it, it continues to function just as well as it did back in the day. Software like this stands the test of time. The last major feature update was in 2018, but Ghost is definitely still for sale and supported. Norton Ghost was discontinued in 2013 however Ghost lives on as Symantec Ghost which is targeted at the enterprise environment. We routinly image up to 1000 units in a day. Our configuration benchs have the capacity to image 124 units simultaneously using network PKE boot. I work for a managed service provider and my company also operates a staging and configuration wearhouse. The only good thing is that our customers are so tech illiterate and dependent on this awful software that we are able to charge absurd rates for our services.Ĭontary to popular belief Ghost isn't dead. Serial ports are still common and not everyone is comfortable with new technologies like DHCP because “it’s just another thing that can break.” The biggest thing keeping us attached to it is that the primary POS software we use is dependent on so many settings stored in various locations (the registry, config files and databases) that it all but necessities thick images. We operate in the point of sale space and legacy technology never dies here. My main objection is that ghost is a thick imaging solution which is the antithesis of the direction Microsoft has been moving for more than a decade. We also started mapping drives in windows PE and imaging "locally" because the legacy protocols used to image work poorly at scale. We have nursed it along by moving it to newer versions of Windows PE so that it we can use modern drivers. My company uses ghost extensively and I hate it. I feel a little weird replying to this post because I feel like you may be a newish hire at my company.
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