[ale] OT: NT/XP/2K/2K3 Disk Imaging

[Jeff Hubbs]

Back in my age of pre-enlightement, the rule of thumb was that disk 
images made from one NT  (or subsequent derivative) machine could be 
installed on outwardly identical machines, but doing so was discouraged 
because NT made installation decisions based on the hardware it saw at 
install time and that small running changes (e.g., different rev level 
within a mobo chipset) between outwardly identical machines would be 
detected at install time and different binaries would go on disk, so as 
to result in a deviation between the OS installed on an image-created 
machine and the OS that would be there had it been installed on the 
exact same unit.  As a result, you could wind up with a machine that's 
crash-happy and you'd never be able to figure out why.

Does anyone know if this is still the case with current releases of 
Windows OSses?

As an aside, supposedly, Linux wasn't *as* susceptable to this because 
you could make allowances at kernel-config-time and beyond that, the 
kernel and modules would decide what they saw when they were first 
invoked, particularly at boot time. In other words, if you compiled an 
everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kernel and booted to it and/or started 
the modules, they would sense rev-level issues and switch themselves 
appropriately (such as the CMD640 IDE bug).

As other people have, I ask here off-topically because of the general 
sharp-cookie quotient.

Jeff