Partition Imagers

Partition imaging packages are an excellent way to save the state of the operating system and software configured on the computer for testing purposes. We often need to test our applications on a variety of platforms and software configurations. To save on buying a separate machine for each of these combinations, you can configure a machine with a specific OS, load up the software, and then create an image. You do this for each of the combinations your customers expect you to test. When you need to test a specific platform, just restore the image, install your application, and test. You can also test out deployment packages you create. This is important when you are testing new runtimes , various ActiveX controls, and other technologies that might not be loaded on your customer ‚ s production machines.

DriveImage

Powerquest Corporation

The latest version of DriveImage can image a partition without leaving Windows, and can save images and restore them from various devices like CD-ROM, USB drives, and network drives . It is lightning fast. Not only can you use this in your development environment, but you can use it to back up the state of your client ‚ s machine before deploying a test version. More information is available at www.powerquest.com . The evaluation version of this tool can be downloaded from this site and the full version is US$70.

Ghost

Symantec Corporation

This is the longtime favorite of hardware administrators to maintain images for computers in the organization or enterprise. It supports USB, Firewire, or recordable CD or DVD external drives and devices. Ghost comes in two versions: single-user and corporate. The single- user version is for a single machine and should only be used to image that computer. Corporate edition is the product administrators use to maintain the image for many computers in their enterprise. It also has some advantages with respect to administrating remote machines and can be used to migrate user profiles. More information is available at www.symantec.com . The tool can be downloaded from this site and the full version is US$420 (for the minimum 10 units).