New
#51
Disk cloning was necessary (for Windows systems, at least) prior to Windows Vista mainly for two reasons. First, Microsoft really didn't provide imaging tools - in fact, they didn't suggest creating/keeping images at all before Windows 2000 (they supported it via sysprep, but they didn't recommend it). Second, even after imaging, there weren't any tools otherwise to handle re-deployment of a sysprep'ed machine. This brought the rise of Ghost (and other tools, but Ghost was king) for sector-based cloning of a hard disk. However, since Microsoft released Vista (and later OSes, including Win7) as images already, the first part of this was already done by the vendor. The second piece, cloning, can (and should) be done with Microsoft's tools using Microsoft's format (WIM). WIM files are file-based images of a system, rather than sector-based, meaning they can be single-instance storage (so you can store multiple versions of the same OS in the same WIM file, similar to how it's done on the Windows DVD, and only take up the space of one file if each "image" contains the same file), it can be updated offline (adding patches, drivers, adding/removing features, etc), does not contain any filesystem or partition information in the image (so it can be restored just about anywhere), and doesn't require a destructive wipe of existing data before applying the image.
Again, cloning is most definitely XP-era (and older) technology, and tools that do such should be avoided going forward. Also, even Windows XP can be imaged using the WIM container format using Microsoft's tools (the XP OS inside a WIM can't be updated or maintained like Vista or Win7 can, but you still get the other benefits of using the WIM container versus a sector-based image).