Re-Imaging, Mirroring or Cloning of Client Harddrives

Many schools have networked groups of their computers, and regularly perform re-imaging (mirroring or cloning) of those computers' hard drives.

Periodically, at end of term or some other interval, the system administrator purges the entire content from each connected computer’s hard drive and replaces it with a "cloned" image residing on the network server. This serves to clean out student records, changes and student stored additions.

Because Optimum Resource on-line activated products have imbedded copy protection, each application must be installed onto a given computer by someone with administrative privileges and then activated on-line (or by phone or mail) on that same computer.

Each individual machine generates its own Request Number which in turn requires an Activation Number tied to that machine. A file on each machine is then updated. This insures that the application will be aware of its activation status. The program will not run without this updated file.

Because re-imaging removes all the contents of a hard drive, it also removes any files which have been updated since the last purge. The program would therefore have to be reinstalled and reactivated on each machine.

If you keep a record of the Activation Number provided for each machine when installing, and re-image from a source which contains an unactivated copy of the program, you can activate the program by simply typing the Activation Number in to the required box. After which, the program will run until the next re-imaging.

Install the program to the master re-imaging drive, but do not activate it.

While we cannot foretell the specific actions a school's network administrator might take in the re-imaging process, there are scenarios which may help an administrator to reduce the amount of work involved in both installing and restoring our applications.

For example:

The administrator installs our application on the server or one of the networked machines. Without activating the application, he copies the application to each machine. The unactivated image may be distributed to multiple computers (thereby avoiding the necessity of carrying the CD from machine to machine). Each machine will still need to be activated individually.

What Not To Do:

The administrator installs our application on one of his client machines. He then activates the application and copies the files from that computer for use as the mirror image for distribution to several machines.

This will not work! Our application checks the hardware on each machine and will not allow a copy of an activated application to run on a different machine.

Do I have to go online to activate each computer every time we purge the hard drives?

The answer is no. The first time you activate a specific computer you will receive an Activation Number targeted to that individual machine. If you keep that number on file, you can bypass the online activation process by entering it into the pop-up activation screen that appears when you first run the application. This activation number will not change over time - but it is dependent on the physical components of each machine. Once activated in this way, the application will continue to run uninterrupted until the next hard drive purge.

Remember:

Keep an unactivated copy of the program on the server for distribution to client machines.

Keep track of each machine’s Activation Number, you will need it when re-imaging or reinstalling.

Keep track of the Serial Number (which is on the original package). You will need it when installing to other machines.

If new computers are added, please contact us to purchase additional seats.