I manage several computing labs for a college with a total of 125 computers (all running Windows). All of the computers are periodically re-imaged with an identical OS/Software image using Symantec Ghost.

I'm interested in approaching the dean of the college with the idea of including boinc in the standard image for the lab computers but I'd like to have the answers to some questions before I bring this up.

• Does anyone else have any experience with this?
  
• Will boinc survive the Ghost/Sysprep process so that each machine comes up as a unique host (as far as boinc and the assorted projects are concerned)?
  
• Is there a way for the boinc manager to clear out all of the current data sets and then reload them the next time the machine is restarted? I'd like to make sure that all of the machines are not working on the same data set(s) when they are re-imaged.
  
• Are there command-line flags for the boinc manager that I can use to manage its behavior?
  
• Is this a completely crazy idea?
  

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No direct experience but I do have some theoretical advice.

When creating the image install BOINC as a service but do not attach to any projects. Once installed stop BOINC. Copy appropriate account*.xml file(s) to the image's BOINC directory. Make your image at this point.

You can get account*.xml files from any currently attached host.

When you reimage the client should automatically attach and generate a new host ID when the host is booted. You may want to merge hosts from time to time.

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