creating a generic disk image for nt clients

[Jens Schwepe]

hi,

this may be abit off topic, but at least...
maybe i reach someone with the knowledge to give me advice :)

i am running an internet cafe with samba pdc and nt4 clients.
as people keep installing/deinstalling software, erasing files, downloading 
stuff etc.
i setup every client with linux and winnt. with "dd if=/dev/hda1 | gzip -c 
--best > diskimage.gz" i backed up the initial windows installation and via 
cron-script re-write it on disk every night. thus the nt client is "freshly 
installed" every morning :D

now i hate to have all those different backups on the server. i'd rather like 
to have one initial backup re-written to every client, which then gets his 
customization while booting.
concerning the ip-address, network and wins, this i have done with a central 
dhcp server, presenting fixed ip's based on the mac-address of the network 
card.

but, i cannot set the machine's name and domain-password via this way. so i 
thought of the cron-script in linux:
it would be possible to re-write the disk-image, mounting it and only overwrite 
the registry and the file where the machine's passwort is stored.

this is my question (finally *g*):
'cos i am no windows freak, which files do i have to store ? e.g. which is the 
registry file, and in which file is the machine's password stored ?



yours,
jens

js at ic-bremen.de
www.ic-bremen.de