What Are the Best Tools for Automating Workstation Builds?

In a past role, I set up a provisioning package that handled essential tasks and onboarded devices to RMM. Then, the RMM executed PowerShell scripts to take care of everything else. Creating provisioning packages with WCD is pretty straightforward—just insert the USB during OOBE! If you're after a complete imaging solution, others might have good suggestions too.

Using WDS or other PXE boot options, you can set up a custom Windows PE environment to automatically image Windows onto your drives. This way, you can inject drivers and run scripts without needing to interact with the out-of-box experience (OOBE). Silent installation options for apps work wonders as well; you won't even need to create a user during setup anymore!

If you're a Microsoft customer, Intune can do wonders here. You can hand over the laptop without needing to unbox it, and once the staff connect to the network, everything gets deployed automatically.

You’ve got loads of options out there! Personally, I started out with Windows Configuration Designer but soon we'll transition to Intune for better management. It’s all about finding what fits best for your specific needs.

I leveraged Chocolatey to prepare a basic image for distribution that was provided by our IT team. For our devs, if they could handle it themselves, we’d just direct them to the docs for setup. For regular employees, someone would assist them through the process. Normally, it requires just a single command, and if any issues arise, it’s usually something minor that can just be retried.

We use Windows Autopilot with Intune. It's not exactly a golden image, but it pulls the latest Microsoft image and deploys the apps you've configured. It simplifies things a lot!

Make sure to check into imaging rights, as there could be some licensing hurdles you'll need to get past in order to stay compliant with Microsoft's rules when deploying your products.

If you're keen on using golden images, I've had good results with FFUs (Full Flash Updates) to deploy images across laptops. You can pre-install drivers and programs before deployment. In my experience, it has reduced the install time significantly, from hours to just about 15 minutes, not counting end-user data migration.

Explore the various options available; a bit of research will help you find what suits your situation best!

It sounds like you're in need of a robust software distribution system. Systems like Matrix42 can help streamline your process significantly. You can PXE boot a client, link it to Matrix, and it will handle Windows installation, driver setup, domain registration, and software installation seamlessly. It’s a big effort and investment initially, but it pays off in the long run.