If you have to install and configure new PCs as part of your job, you'll know how handy disk imaging and cloning tools can be. You'll also appreciate their limitations, especially when it comes to deploying images to PCs from different vendors or those with different components.

Most have ways around these problems, but few can match Universal Imaging Utility (UIU), which lets you create a hardware-independent image for use with any disk imaging application.

The first thing to understand is that, despite the name, Universal Imaging Utility doesn't have any built-in disk imaging functionality of its own. Instead, it takes an existing Windows PC and turns it into a ready-to-install configuration complete with an add-on database of over 26,000 drivers capable of handling most desktop and laptop configurations. You can then take an image of the converted PC, using your imaging tool of choice, and deploy that to your target PCs.

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To test the product we followed the quick startup guide provided and built a 'model' PC, complete with applications, desktop and network settings and so on. In our case we used Windows XP SP2 but there's support too for Vista (32-bit Business and Enterprise versions) and Windows Tablet deployments.

That done, we installed and ran the UIU software to create the hardware-independent image, a Windows wizard stepping us through the processes involved.

These start with a best practices Master Image Machine Integrity Check (MIMIC) to help identify any shortcomings in the base setup. A couple of problems were highlighted and fixed here, after which we had to source a copy of the Microsoft sysprep utility and create an answer file for this to use when later installing the cloned OS. Support for the XML equivalent is also available when deploying Vista.

That done, the wizard began the process of building a ready-to-install image, complete with driver database. When that was complete, about 10 minutes later, it was then just a matter of booting from DOS or WinPE and using an imaging tool to capture a hard disk image ready for deployment. We were then able to boot from that image to install Windows on another PC, the UIU software searching the database during the process and installing drivers for use on the platform involved.

We found it very straightforward, although a fair amount of technical expertise is assumed. It's also impressively quick, apart from the database search which accounts for a lot of the setup time. This is much reduced in the latest 4.0 release, plus there's an optional discovery tool to identify potential hardware setups and only copy the drivers you might feasibly need, to further optimize the process.

Licensing can be an issue, and the product is really aimed at larger companies with volume licensing agreements. Indeed, if you've only a handful of PCs to install or only need to do so occasionally, the expense and effort involved are unlikely to be worth it.

If, however, you need to install Windows on a regular basis, and to a variety of hardware platforms, Universal Imaging Utility has a lot to offer and could pay back the investment involved very quickly indeed.

Universal Imaging Utility addresses one of the major issues of disk imaging by creating a hardware-independent image of Windows, complete with comprehensive driver database, that can be deployed to almost any platform. Designed to work with most disk imaging tools, it can reduce the time and expense involved in deploying Windows XP or Vista in a mixed platform environment.