I’ve been working on a Windows 7 SOE for ASG for a couple of months now. One of the things driving how the SOE is structured is to address issues with the old Windows XP SOE. The XP SOE used what I call a “monolithic” process, by using a captured reference image that included all the SOE applications. This is similar to how Ghost works and I don’t really like it as it doesn’t offer flexibility. The Windows 7 SOE will use a modular approach where the task seequence will have several discreet tasks:
- OS Deployment
- SOE Application Deployment
- Driver Installation
The rationale behind this is, should the need arise, these individual modules can be updated independently without having an effect on other modules.