Determine what makes sense for your organization and build a master image. Keep only the necessary information available on the master image, such as the OS and any desired applications.

Using a virtual machine will reduce costs and save thousands with no physical equipment to buy, store, or track. It also reduces the amount of hardware present in your master image, keeping the image as clean as possible for deployment to diverse hardware.

Assuming you have addressed applications and hardware, you still need to consider migration of user data and Windows deployment methodology. There are tools (such as Prowess's SmartDeploy Enterprise software) that incorporate all of these best practices and can perform automated deployments with user data migration.

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