How to handle rapid laptop and desktop deployments for mixed workforces?
Deploying devices for office, remote, and hybrid new hires often relies on a mix of clunky imaging and repetitive hands-on work that creates massive bottlenecks during high-volume onboarding waves. Small IT teams are forced to navigate overly complex administrative platforms and legacy tools where basic tasks become tangled in settings, making troubleshooting and delegation a nightmare.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
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How to handle rapid laptop and desktop deployments for mixed workforces?
- 1Using a mix of imaging and other legacy methodsDid this help you?
- 2continuing to manually image laptops using Clonezilla and GPODid this help you?
- 3experimenting with Hybrid Autopilot and IntuneDid this help you?
- 4using alternative tools like MDT, DeployR, or Endpoint CentralDid this help you?
- 5building light WDS installer images combined with third-party deployment tools like PDQ DeployDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“What are IT departments using for enterprise deployments of laptops and desktops? We use a mix of imaging and other things, and it feels wrong.”source ↗
“Curious how you deploy with a new hire that is in office, remote and hybrid. What technbology you use and why?”source ↗
“It works, but we have periods where we need to turn around 50-60 laptops in a relatively short amount of time, so there’s a lot of repetitive hands-on work.”source ↗
“I was pretty damn good running it myself but at a certain point, you need others to pull their weight with the basic administration. It's easy to break it and fuck up the entire platform if you're not careful. Then troubleshooting and pulling logs is a nasty endeavor.”source ↗
“i hate it. my god, it can do a lot, but it can also make basic stupid easy things so complex or dependent on many settings and is a real ballache sometimes to deal with.”source ↗
“It would pretty much be a solo endeavor. We have a very small team and due the nature of the org, every year we rapidly onboard 50-60 people within a single month or two.”source ↗
“Troubleshooting it can be a real pain in the ass, and because it has evolved from a product called SMS, there are layers of shit to sort through.”source ↗
Where this came up
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