53.4 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 ZENworks Imaging server. For more information, see Section 60.1, Manually Taking an Image of a Workstation.

    These images should include the Desktop Management Agent, which includes the ZENworks Imaging Windows Agent. ZENworks Desktop Management lets ZENworks work with or without an installation of the Novell Client™ on the workstation. For more information, see Installing and Configuring the Desktop Management Agent in the Novell ZENworks 7 Desktop Management Installation Guide.

  2. If you are using Preboot Services, make sure that Desktop Management Preboot Services (PXE Support) is installed on your ZENworks Imaging server. For more information, see Section 56.0, 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 Section 55.1, Using Preboot Services (PXE).

    or

    If you are not using Preboot Services or the ZENworks partition, create an imaging boot CD or DVD that points to the ZENworks 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 Section 58.1, 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 ZENworks Imaging server.

    or

    If you are not using Preboot Services, boot the workstation with the imaging boot CD or DVD and install the ZENworks partition. For more information, see Step 5 of Section 57.2, Enabling a Windows Workstation for Auto-Imaging Operations. After you have installed the partition, reboot the workstation from the ZENworks partition.

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