Ghost Solution Suite

All,

 

I am currently looking at how we are imaging and after finding out we were not using the GSS products I am at a point where I need to make a decission on if I should be using WDS or GSS (or even both).

 

We are moving towards Windows 7 next year but will still need to deliver XP.

 

Any thoughts ?

GSS gives you the option to create images from Windows 7 and Windows XP machines.
You could dispatch\assign the image to multiple machines at the same time for cloning.
You can use a local boot medium (USB \ CD \ DVD) to boot up the machine and performing a job. Network boot is possible as well............

What is important for you?
What are the key features you looking for?
Do we talking about an environment less than 50 machines?
     Other Symantec Products as Deployment Solution are available a swell to perform this tasks.
Anything you don't want?
     GSS provides some additional functions and tools.
Do you have a Server available to host GSS or only a powerful workstation?
What are the typical tasks you want to perform?

GSS is not being developed as the dev team were laid off a couple of years ago. The code is being moved into the Altiris Deployment Server product, so if you are a user of DS then this might be the way to go.

If on the other hand you are a Microsoft shop, then their Deployment Toolkits are probably the best way to go, using WDS and imaging via WinPE to wim format.

I assume that means that there will not be a GSS 2.6 or 3 ?

Correct. You can read about the "history" of GSS by looking at past postings by Nigel Bree, one of the Ghost developers. The standalone product will not be enhanced further, as the functionality is being subsumed into the Altiris Deployment Solution product.

I am not sure where you are getting your information from, but I can assure you that it is incorrect, and that no such decision has been made.

Well, what would you conclude when the company lays off the entire Ghost development team after underfunding development for some years, and then does NOTHING with the product except produce a couple of patches in the following years.

Sure, there has not been any official position statement on this, but in my experience, if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.

You cannot say that my information is incorrect unless you have definitive information to the contrary, and from what you have posted, no such information is in your possession. However, if you wish to make an official pronouncement on the future of Ghost, I'm sure the user community would welcome the update.

The information that Ghost Solution Suite was to be phased out in favour of Deployment Solution was part of the product roadmap put in place in 2007 when Ghost was reorganized to be part of Altiris. The roadmap at that time did include some future Ghost Solution Suite releases (and shortly afterwards when Hugo Parra took over PM duties he put 3.0 and 4.0 releases onto our roadmap), but the fact that GSS would eventually be subsumed by Deployment Solution was communicated to Symantec customers at the ManageFusion and Vision conferences as far back as 2007 and 2008, from the time Mark Berning was PM, and at no point from then up until GSS 3.0 was cancelled and the development team laid off did Symantec's plans in this regard change (although they did not take the form of a formal announcement, it was quite openly understood with even the technical support staff like yourself saying so openly here on the forums).

Ghost Solution Suite 3.0 was actually taking beta signups at the Altiris beta portal at the time the development team was laid off in April 2009, so the fact that it was close to release was perfectly well-known by any customers who cared to know. Although Symantec's policy was not to make a formal release-date announcement until one month before the ship date, GSS 3.0 was in fact scheduled to release in September 2009 - however, the layoff of the entire product team forced the 3.0 release to be cancelled. The only communication of this fact at the time to customers was this posting by Hugo Parra who was the product manager at the time (and may still be, for all I know - it's not like there has been any PM communication for Ghost at all since that time).

I can assure you that it is incorrect

Ed's statement is factually correct as to Symantec's past plans and actions. Now, there may well have been new plans put in place in the recent year, but the basic fact of the matter is that if so, they haven't been communicated to customers.

On GSS's original roadmap we now **well over** 2 years past the scheduled date for the GSS 3.0 release; during that entire time there has been not one single public communication here from PM since the above message, which was actually posted well after the GSS 3.0 release was internally cancelled ("postponed" being a euphemism, since there was at the time no budget or team to release a major product update with).

If Symantec does have changed plans, and is now actually funding development aimed at producing a numbered update to GSS from the team on Pune, then it would really be appropriate for a PM to communicate those new plans to the customer base.

Hello everyone. I just wanted to introduce myself as the new Product Manager for GSS, so you know where I'm coming from. 

While Nigel is correct that it has been some time since we've released a new version of GSS. I want to assure you, though, that we have a release planned for next year. There is no plan to replace GSS with Deployment Solution. Though that might have been the plan at some point, it isn't the plan as of today. I apologize to the community at large that this information hasn't been shared before now.

I know GSS has gone through a rocky past couple of years, but we (Symantec) believe there's tremendous value in continuing work on GSS. Please take this as the official word from Symantec, because that's what it is. :)


Thanks,
Jon

That is all good to hear.

It will certainly be interesting to see what makes the cut for a future release, given that there is already so much code sitting there written but unreleased in the Perforce archives from the 2009 cancellation (unlike the earlier time GSS was cancelled in 2004-5, which was more damaging overall but was at least less abrupt). I know there's quite a few pieces of code I wrote which are still unreleased that would be of benefit to GSS customers if only they could get shipped somehow, and it will be satisfying to see any of that put to use instead of feelling that those last years at Symantec were completely wasted effort.

I apologize to the community at large that this information hasn't been shared before now.

To be fair, most of the delay is not your fault to apologise for, as this new change of direction was contingent on the existence of actual support for the product at the VP level. It's not PM's fault that customers were being left hanging due to VP hostility to the product's existence.

What would be nice is if while there is some sunshine and budget, there was more of this kind of communication taking place. Prior to 2009 we on the development team put a lot of effort into making sure that customers were well-informed as to our thinking and made ourselves as available to the community as we could be. Given that most of what actually got done to the product was driven by engineering concerns, that was especially appropriate for Ghost, and basically unique among Symantec products. Of course we broke through various organizational pushback to make that work, but after the 2004-5 cancellation it was a matter of survival.

If Symantec now really does intend for GSS to come back from this, then that kind of involvement with the community from the product engineering side would be a good way to go about it.

Welcome Jon - I hope your arrival as the new PM signals the beginning of an era where the users can receive better information on the Ghost roadmap.

With that in mind - can you be any more specific about the release date for the next Ghost version?  Will it be Q1 of 2012 or Q4?  Also, will there be a beta phase before release?

Hi

To create the system images and deploy them, i'll suggest the best option as WDS, this is the better option to deploy the images.

you can find guidence from the following link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766320(WS.10).aspx

Great News Jon.

 

Good to know.

 

Thanks,

Congratulations Jon,

Being a product manager of GSS your point of view is very good to improve the functionality of GSS. GSS is great product which was a king in the deployment infra.

We are also waiting for new version of GSS with improve functionalities..

Hello Chelseauk,

This is great news!!!!  Nigel, I wanted to thank you since you answered my question about this in another thread and it's good to hear that the company hasn't given up on a great product.   GSS has been a good send for our company as I have to remotely image a bunch of PC's that change from project to project and GSS has done this wonderfully. 

 

I know there is mention of upgrading to WinPE 3.0 from 2.0 and I hope that is true.  Our company like many others skipped Vista and I even though 2.0 works with Windows 7, I would like to see ghost move to WinPE 3.0.  The only other request would be to update Deploy Anywhere to allow Video and Audio Drives.  I have several models of Dell's and HP's and even using Sysprep, the intel Video drivers have been driving me mad and Deploy Anwhere makes Drive Integration so much eaiser on our images. 

Thank you for the wonderful News Jon..

 

Rgds

Santhi Vardhan

The thing about Windows PE 3.0 is probably not going to be confirmed, and neither will a release date be confirmed unless Symantec's policies have radically changed. The thing about WinPE 3.0 is that it's just about the *only* thing Symantec actually have the engineering capacity left now to actually *do*, given that having fired all the original developers who knew the code inside out and only having a small maintenance skeleton crew in India. Fortunately, dropping in Windows PE 3.0 is very easy, so it's likely that they can get this done over the course of this year even without any additional investment - given that still being on Windows PE 2.0 generates a substantial fraction of the support activity, the Technical Support group would likely be pushing for it.

Despite the PM statement above, GSS really is still basically dead - it's hard to overstate just how much contempt for the entire product category pretty much every one of the VPs that GSS was assigned in the last decade to has displayed, and how much shareholder value they've destroyed with their ignorance of and indifference to serving the customers. However, even though it's in managed decline the fact that Symantec does at least honour the letter (if not always the spirit) of maintenance contracts means that the product should stay viable for a while to come even though no real new features are likely.

As for the Video/Audio driver support, that's probably something more likely to succeed if you also make it as a formal request[*] for Deployment Solution, since the DeployAnywhere tools are used in DS as well. The maintenance team who look after the GSS components generally can't get political support to do anything but the absolute minimum of work on things that aren't shared with Deployment Solution, because GSS is so despised by the VPs (not that they like DS either, given what an immense disaster it is, but they at least are willing to tolerate it).

[*]  i.e., not on the Connect forums; there's actually never been any formal program in Symantec for feeding back connect data to the planning process (although we on the original GSS team did it on our own, since PM-level feedback for GSS was worse than useless because most of our customers were untouched sales that didn't go through account managers). In general Symantec PMs all ignore Connect completely - to actually get listened to you need to go through an account manager as PMs rate customer feedback by number of licenses, and the more licenses you have is the only leverage you can exert.

Jon Sharp,

 

Any update on a time line or features that will be in GSS 3.0.  I use GSS a lot since all the PC's I have are project based and are wiped and configured from project to project and this has been the best tool ever for doing this.  We are looking to go to Windows 7 soon and while I know 2.5 will support 7, I still would like to see a more compatible setup with ghost.  I cannot find anythign else offical so I know there are a lot of people that are eger to get some updated information.  Thank you. 

Maybe Jon Sharp has been let go as well....?

So much for Symantec been more communicative about GSS!

@Nigel Bree: I still remember the awesome level of support you provided when I had a problem with a Ghost image, Symantec lost an excellent employee - I hope where ever you are now realise what a star employee they have.

 

This thread has rung the death knell for the last Symantec product we use here.

I can't help feeling that the promise of V3 was a knee-jerk statement to keep hope alive. However, as there has been no further activity reported at any level, I think it would be fair to assume that this was just vaporware.

WinPE already comes with imagex.exe, which can create images in a manner not unlike Ghost, but without some of the flexibility. Windows 8 is rumoured to be able to use wim files (produced by imagex) directly, so once again Microsoft are building further basic functionality into their operating systems and making third party utilities increasingly redundant.  I don't think Symantec has the drive or the investment to compete with Microsoft at this level, so I'm not pinning my hopes on a new version of Ghost ever appearing.

I guess all good things come to an end.  I have already started to look else where from Symantec for our particular deploying stratagey needs,  especially for Windows 7.  Good luck with all of you out there, it's truly sad that we are saying goodbye to such a wonderful product.

 

 

My manager has just confirmed to me that our GSS maintenance will lapse; initially we'll be looking at WDS / MDT.

Thankfully I'm not under time constraints to change over because we bought GSS rather than leasing it.

I am sorry to see it go, let's just hope Symantec sell it on rather than let it die.

All,

Yes, it has been a few months from my last post on this thread. I apologize for my slow response time. I don't have nearly as much time as I'd like to stay on top of the forums. However, that doesn't change what I stated above and planning is moving forward on this release. A product release lifecycle can, at times, be lengthy and involves many steps along the way. My response was very early in that process.

@EdT: No, the promise of GSS 3.0 wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to keep hope alive. If I'm planning on end-of-life'ing a product, the last thing I want is to increase addoption--that just makes the EOL process more difficult. I responded above because, based on our track-record of many years, it might appear that all work on GSS has halted and we are killing it off. Based on your responses of the past few weeks, it certainly seems that is the common belief.

@Pete Gomersall: No I haven't been let go, or moved. (Whew!) I'm still PM of GSS. You can't get rid of me that easy. ;)

To keep you up-to-date, we are currently working with engineering to finalize both the features that will go into 3.0 as well as a time-frame for release. Until we've made those decisions, it doesn't make sense to post speculation, so I won't comment on either (included features or release date). 

There probably was a time when there were no more GSS releases planned. In fact, there might have been VPs that used GSS boxes as their dart-board of choice. However, I only know how my current leadership (and the engineering leadership) feel and they are very much on board with this release. GSS has an important place in our strategy moving forward.

Look, I can't go back and re-write the history that has brought us to this point (and I understand how frustrating it must be for the likes of Nigel Bree who developed it originally and haven't seen an update in a while--I know what that's like, having been a developer myself in a past life). However, I can do a lot to effect its future roadmap--which is what I do best, and intend to keep doing.

I'm very excited about this release and I hope it benefits many of you, our long-standing customers who have patiently waited--for far too long--for an update.

Okay, long post. Time to move on.

Thanks,
Jon

I just got directed to this thread this morning, and having read it in it's entirety, I'm pretty happy with it. Jon, thanks very much for all the information.

I do have one suggestion for you... Upon encountering a major bug in the 2.5.1.2266 build, I've now learned from numerous sources that the 2.5.1.2266 build has multiple serious bugs. It's also the last build one can get from Live Update. In order to get the bug fixes, one has to call technical support, download the fix, and manually install it. I'm told it's because the fixes haven't been fully regression tested, so they don't want them done as a blanket rollout. Could I request that a little more effort be put into getting these fixes into Live Update? I've encountered forum posts referencing the exact patch I installed this morning (2269) going back to 2010, so the patches have, literally, been around for years at this point.

Thanks.

Jon,

I note your remarks about nay-sayers but you must not lose sight of the fact that there are many users who have been in the IT business for over 35 years, including myself. We therefore have a lot of experience working with different companies and their product managers. Some companies engage with their users, provide clear product road maps, and if a product is delayed for any reason, are up front about why.  It is my personal opinion that product managers need to engage with users a little more often than once in 5 months and this should be factored into their daily activities. I know many product managers at other companies who ineract with users on a weekly and often on a daily basis and use the information they gather to further improve the product specification.  I am aware that you also cover other products but keeping in touch on a more regular basis is surely not beyond your means.

The history of Symantec products is well known to the IT community and if things are changing for the better, then what is marketing doing? They are certainly not engaging with the user communities on a day to day basis - at least not as far as I have been able to determine or seen any evidence of.

I certainly have no problem in taking your statement that you can do a lot to affect future roadmaps at face value, but one update in five months, which tells us nothing new, is not doing it for me. Based on your original contribution, the new product should appear by the end of this year, which is an incredibly agressive development timescale when the feature content has yet to be finalised. 

As a former developer yourself, what is the cut off date for a firm specification to be in place, to meet a 2012 ship date, in your opinion?

 

Jon,

Thanks you for the update.

For me, who uses the full functionality of GSS251 on a daily basis, I really hope that you (Symantec) can get something out the door with Windows 8 compatibility as close to its RTM as possible. Maybe it could just we an interim release, before a full version 3.0. But for me, I will need something to use immediately we have the media - this as with the release of Windows 7 will probably be mid August, 2 1/2 months before retail!

I just hope Symantec will not drag their feet and it be 2013+ before we see anything useful.

Regards

@EdT: I understand totally. In the end, it's worthless to argue back and forth about what will happen versus what has happened. Just know that I'm trying to improve the product and help its users. I'm trying to become more active in these forums (I'm learning there's a significant customer base involved here), and I continue to have frequent conversations with GSS customers. Hopefully you'll give me a chance to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. :-) Thanks for the feedback everyone. Oh, and I'll post a new thread once I have more information I can make public--there's no need to keep hijacking this thread.

Well good to hear there will be a new GSS.
Working for years with this product and it could use some basic improvements like a search function.

 

LEVD

Hi Jon,

I am also a long time user of Symantec Ghost.  I have developed solutions that included restore discs that are included with computers we ship to customers (using VAR licenses).  Ghost has always been a reliable solution that WORKS for deployment.

While ImageX may supplant Ghost from a cost perspective, there is notable functionality missing from ImageX, namely the ability to image NON-MS operating systems, partitions, etc. 

I don't understand why Symantec wants to kill Ghost off or did want to.  It is one of the few products I have maintained support on over the years.  I have found value in Ghost from Windows NT all the way through Windows 7. 

I also would like to see updates to Windows PE 3.0 and an updated driver database.  I mainly use Ghost under Windows PE for deployment.  Anything that can be done to improve deploment would be greatly appreciated.  One suggestion I might have is to look at a PXE boot environment that is a little more sophisticated than the 3com services.  I am now using PXElinux as my PXE boot environment.  Having a nice GUI frontend for configuring menus would be wonderful.  I think MANY corporate customers would welcome this type of addition.

I would also like to see the WinPE boot menus revamped in GSS to allow for customizing the scripts/default files that are added.  In my case I wanted to OMIT ghost32.exe and instead include the read only version that I can stamp with my company logo.  It would save me a TON of time manually building WinPE discs with the correct files and then all of the testing on each model.