Restoring Lab or Classroom Workstations to a Clean State

After each lab session, you can restore every workstation to a clean state, removing any changes or additions made during the session. The following steps assume that the workstations are unregistered (not imported into eDirectory).

1. Create an image of a clean model workstation and store it on a Desktop Management Workstation Imaging server. For more information, see Manually Taking an Image of a Workstation.

   Upgrade each workstation to the latest Novell Client, if needed, using Automatic Client Update. Or, install the Desktop Management Agent. ZENworks Desktop Management lets ZENworks work with or without an installation of the Novell Client on the workstation. If your setup requires the Novell Client, you should install the Desktop Management Agent after the Novell Client installation to ensure that you are running the latest Imaging Agent. For more information, see "Installing and Configuring the Desktop Management Agent" in the Novell ZENworks 6.5 Desktop Management Installation Guide guide.

2. If you are using Preboot Services, make sure that Desktop Management Preboot Services (PXE Support) has been installed on your imaging server. For more information, see Using ZENworks Desktop Management Preboot Services.
3. If you are using Preboot Services and the workstations are PXE capable, make sure that PXE is enabled. For more information, see Using Preboot Services (PXE).

   or

   If you are not using Preboot Services or the Linux partition, create an imaging boot CD or diskettes (SP1 only) that point to the Desktop Management Workstation Imaging server where the clean image is stored. For more information, see Preparing an Imaging Boot Method.

4. Create a policy for unregistered workstations that specifies the clean image to restore. Choose the option to always force down the same base image. For more information, see Defining an Imaging Policy for Unregistered Workstations (Server Policy).

Deploy each lab workstation as follows:

1. Physically connect the workstation to the lab network.
2. If you are using Preboot Services, boot the workstation from the Imaging/Preboot Services server.

   or

   If you are not using Preboot Services, boot the workstation with the imaging boot CD or diskettes (SP1 only) and install the Desktop Management Workstation Imaging (Linux) partition. For more information, see Step 6 of Enabling a Workstation for Auto-Imaging Operations. After you have installed the partition, reboot the workstation from the Desktop Management Imaging partition.

3. At the end of each lab session, reboot each workstation and let it be auto-imaged by the policy.