Removing Hardware Settings

[Anonymous]

Is there any way that by removing one/more registry keys it is possible to return the computer to a state where it has to redetect all of the hardware. This would be useful so that I can use one Ghost image for many computers, without causing any hardware conflicts due to using an image file from a different computer.

It would be most useful if you could return it to the state just after it has copied all of the files in windows setup where it then detects all of the devices.

It is not a solution to just take an image at this point as other programs such as Office would not be installed at this point.

Thanks in advance

Paul

[BobD]

Yes there is sort of a way to do this. There is a file in your root directory called system.1st. This is the first instance of windows creating system.dat. By renaming this system.1st and replacing the system.dat the computer will again go through hardware detection upon next boot up. Any 32bit programs that you have installed will have to be re-installed. Also, removing one of the Enum sections in the registry will have the same effect, I'm not 100% quite sure which one it is at this moment, since this isn't the way to go.
Another way is, is to go into control panel highlight the items, then select remove. This option may work for what you're looking for. Delete the video card and the network card if your other machines have different types. These are the two major items that prevent you from having only one universal ghost image. PnP is usually pretty good about picking up everything else and installing the correct drivers. This is how Norton Ghost recommends creating your images, create a directory with all of your additional drivers for your various components, remove the association for your video card and network card, then ghost the image. When bringing down the image point to the directory where your drivers are when prompted.
I use Ghost everyday on my network. I found the biggest problems to be different video cards and network cards. If you have room on a server create an image for every type of machine as close as possible varying with the different video and NIC cards. I have approx. 11 images. The images contain only Windows 95 and Client32 for Novell. That's it! The images range to be around 100MB. You can burn several on one CD and use the windows boot disk to access the CD-Rom through dos if you're not using a network. After the computer is setup I install the needed software.
On a 10MB Ethernet network the images take about 3 minutes to download. This is many times faster than using an automated installation setup routine. Windows98 would take, I'm guessing about 4 to 6 minutes. An automated installation for 98 would still take probably about 30 minutes at the fastest.
If you want any more tips such as automating this process through a batch routine let me know, I am very familiar with what you're wanting to do.