For the past 4+ years, Mike has made my job easier with his NetRestore software. NetRestore allows me to easily clone computers in order to restore and when I update computers, I create one image (using NetRestore Helper) and send it to the others. I figured it all out using Mike's documentation and online lab deployment information. When I get a new computer for the lab or a faculty Macintosh, I boot from an external disk, erase and partition the internal hard drive. I create two partitions, consisting of one small one with just enough space for a small basic operating system and one with the rest of the drive. The small drive is the emergency restore system. When I have a problem computer or a major updated image, I boot of the small partition and use NetRestore to point to the location with the image I created with NetRestore Helper as the source and send it to the larger partition. NetRestore makes it possible to easily re-image the lab computers before every semester.

This product has made for a better running and more consistently updated lab. Most likely it has also kept me at my job longer than I would have stayed without this software.

I called "Ease of Use" 4 out of 5. It took me a while to learn the things it can do completely on my own. I really would have just called everything 5 out of 5, but you might not have believed me, right?

I use expensive commercial software for doing the same thing on my windows computers. It is great software, but you know what? Adding NetRestore to Apple's Remote Desktop software makes just as good a product for the Apple side.