Consensus- deploy OEM imaged machine or Fresh Install

[Womprat56]

So I have a freshly minted Tier1 who is 6 months into her "new" IT career(never worked in IT previously) who is arguing that taking a new system out of the box and doing an Upgrade from Win 7 Home to Pro is the more expedited and in her words, "less redundant" method to deploy, than to take the time to create a USB installer and build the image from scratch, despite my instructing otherwise(Tier2/Admin in current role myself).

I have been at this for a couple of decades, and i have always recommended in an enterprise environment to create new images for deployed systems.

Lets hear your thoughts, those who do this for a living.

New image or upgrade from an OEM image?

 

[fireberd]

If you are going to implement a custom "Corporate" disc image, then it needs to be a "clean" install. I'm a retired Regional LAN/WAN Network and Help Desk manager, for a Federal Government Agency, and we had a standard disc images that we installed on new machines or if it had to be reloaded. We didn't install "over" an existing image. We had several different disc images, depending on the specific application. But, we didn't manually install Windows and applications as there was no need for that since we had the disc images.

(I had level 1, 2 and 3 Help Desk tech's and contract server specialists).

 

[torchwood]

Hi Womprat,
I would go your route, deploying from a master image
Same as Firebird, why because your working from a known company wide Baseline, it makes problem solving easier and quicker.
Another bonus being that all required GPO's and settings are immediately in place

Used to be Regional Finance\IT liason officer for a National Utility company.

Roy

 

[Womprat56]

Thanks folks, keep those opinions coming!