[Watford] Maintaining a reference Windows system image

[John Ingleby]

I am planning to install additional Windows PCs here at school, and in
order to keep sane the idea is to maintain a single XP Pro image which
can be used to download and re-image any PC that gets into trouble
(kids inserting USB with virus, playing with settings, etc.).

Several questions:

1) We should obviously keep a reference machine updated with Windows
patches, updates to application software, and various school-specific
settings. What is the mechanism for taking an image of this machine?

2) How do we actually serve this image to a machine that needs to be
"refreshed"? (We'll be doing this from a Linux server, yet to be
installed)

3) Can the process be initiated entirely from the server, or must I
run back and forth?

4) Can the same image be used (or tweaked) to cope with a small number
of different hardware varieties?

Thanks in advance for any advice/pointers.

Best wishes,

John
(Rare visitor to Watford LUG)