Desktop management never gets the credit it deserves. Most companies to leverage automation for their time intensive tasks such as desktop upgrades, rebuilds, and other user workstation management scenarios.

Our firm uses a universal boot USB key to install all Client and Server OS…with all the drivers dynamically slipstreamed.  

Interested in dynamic desktop management for Windows…learn more about Desktop and VDI solutions from a Microsoft perspective.

The Vision of the Optimised Desktop - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/default.aspx

People are the most important resource in any organisation. The role of technology is to unlock their potential. The Optimised Desktop is about empowering your people to be more productive with a flexible technology infrastructure, while providing the IT department the needed level of control, manageability, and security. Learn more about five scenarios for enabling workers to be successful in their jobs with Microsoft desktop solutions, or read the Optimised Desktop eBook

Balancing the Needs of End Users and IT - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/desktop/default.aspx

Organisations look to their people to drive business success, and to the information technology (IT) department to build and manage an infrastructure that supports and enables people to be successful in their jobs. Often, these expectations create a natural tension between end users, who want the flexibility to support a dynamic work environment, and an IT department that needs greater control and manageability.

The solution to this challenge is an "Optimised Desktop" infrastructure. An Optimized Desktop describes a state in which your organisation has attained the right balance in its desktop infrastructure - empowering employees with the flexibility they need to be productive, while providing IT the necessary level of control, manageability, and security

Ease Desktop Management with Microsoft Solutions - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/management/default.aspx

Managing desktops across an enterprise is often time-consuming, complex, and costly. IT organizations face difficult PC manageability tasks on a daily basis. The Windows 7 operating system, Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), and System Center provide you with the infrastructure to enable business agility for end users in addition to increased control, streamlined management, and cost reduction for IT.

How Desktop Virtualisation Transforms your Business - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/virtualization/default.aspx

Now more than ever, organisations are looking to increase business flexibility while reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for their desktop infrastructure. Microsoft Desktop Virtualisation solutions provide IT managers with flexible desktop management options, from deploying virtual applications to gaining efficiencies with centralised and diskless PCs.

So, some great resources there, however, if I had to choose one, above all the others, based on my experience, I would point you to the Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios.  In a nutshell, Microsoft has identified 5 common scenarios, or, types of users, that exist within organisations.  These are, Office, Mobile, Task, Contract and Home.  Each have their own methods of working effectively, and require different tools based on their scenario.  Each also require a different level of user experience.  Some may require a rich, graphical OS environment, with local access to data, whereas others may require a very traditional, locked down, low-graphics type environment, for entering customer related information into a CRM system for example.  Taking these scenarios, you can start to map these scenarios, on to the most optimal (in most cases) technologies that would meet their requirements.  Take me for example.  I’m a mobile worker, on the road a great deal.  I can’t always guarantee an internet connection, and if I could, I couldn’t guarantee the quality of that connection.  Would a remote working environment be ideal for me?  No chance.  That would actually have a detrimental effect on my working capabilities.  A Windows 7 laptop, with locally installed apps, or App-V delivered apps, combined with some of the inbox features like DirectAccess and BitLocker, would give me a greater level of productivity.  Once you’ve watched the videos, Microsoft also provide a tool, in the form of the Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios, on which to work with a customer, or your business teams internally, to help define the different types of users in the environment.  You can read more about WODS here.

Read the original article @> virtualboy : Desktop Optimisation – Which technologies, for which users?