G_Man

Your question is actually two different issues:

1.  *Deployment* of the *master* baseline laptop so all other laptops have the same starting point.  Once deployed, you then activate each system with its Vista license.  You probably do not want to *re-deploy*, and reactivate Windows each time something goes wrong...so after you deploy, you then want to create a baseline image for each laptop for restoring going forward--so #2 below...

2.  Once deployed, then having the ability to restore a baseline image of that laptop back to a given starting point.

Technically, you need a Vista license for each laptop--and a Ghost license for each as well.  Being as Ghost 2003 is long past being available, you will have to consider what's currently available.

Ghost Solution Suite 2.x (aka Ghost 11) is what you need with a site license for as many systems as you are using.  It is designed to deploy a master image to multiple systems, and manage images for those systems via a network.

You create your *master* system, SysPrep that system (prepares the master system so it can detect and install needed registry entries when on a unique new system--even if the laptop is the *same* as all the others, it's still *unique*--the NIC has a unique MAC address, the motherboard, CPU, HDDs, etc. have unique serial numbers), create your master image, and then deploy it to the laptops.

After activating each laptop, create a baseline image of each for restoring as needed in the future.

Hello G_Man:

Have we met before?