Company Deployment Image

Hello,

I was looking into making a "Golden Image" to shave a bunch of time off when I set up new or re-allocated existing rigs at work and wanted to as a few questions. We are all on Win 10 Pro1909-21H1 and one PC on 11.

Q1. Much like a system image DISM can install an image when a new PC shows the OOB screen right?

Q2. When using DISM to make an image makes a .wim file that can save system configuration i.e. settings on where X PDF program saves to X folder, etc.?

Q3. I have also been reading about answer files. It sounds much like a .wim it too saves configurations that can be applied at the OBB screen?

Q4. Is one of these methods older than the other/ is one of these methods better than the other?

Q5. We have six or so different generations of Dell machines floating around. How will this affect imaging? One image per Gen of Dell PC or is it drive depended like HDD to SSD, SSD to NVME, 500GB to 1TB, 1TB to 500GB?

Look forward to hearing from you!

Far too many questions rather difficult to see as not numbered e.g. layout as

Q1 Can

Q2 Will

Q3 How

Then users can reply to questions they can answer

Q1 Can
A1 No ......

etc.

No disrespect but it seems to me you have limited experience at such deployment, and it has a big learning curve.

You really need to start with basics and develop key skills, rather than trying to answer all questions in one go.

A good start point is this tutorial

Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation | Tutorials (tenforums.com)