Thick Images

Thick images are monolithic images that contain core applications and other files. Part of the image-development process is installing core applications prior to capturing the disk image, as shown in Figure below. To date, most organizations that use disk imaging to deploy operating systems are building thick images.

The advantage of thick images is deployment speed and simplicity. You create a disk image that contains core applications and thus have only a single step to deploy the disk image and core applications to the destination computer. Thick images also can be less costly to develop, as advanced scripting techniques are not often required to build them. In fact, you can build thick images by using MDT 2010 with little or no scripting work. Finally, in thick images, core applications are available on first start.

The disadvantages of thick images are maintenance, storage, and network costs, which rise with thick images. For example, updating a thick image with a new version of an application requires you to rebuild, retest, and redistribute the image. Thick images require more storage and use more network resources in a short span of time to transfer.

If you choose to build thick images that include applications, you will want to install the applications during the disk-imaging process. In this case, see the following sections later in this tutorial:

• See "Automating Installation" to learn how to install applications silently.
• See "Injecting in a Disk Image" to learn how to add applications to the deployment shares you create by using MDT 2010 and capturing them in a disk image.