Backing up difference in windows system

Question

I have various systems with windows xp installed. After fresh installatios I installed some softwares like visual studio etc. Now lets call this IMAGE1 of the computers. I give out these pcs to users who

• use softwares installed to write code and do stuff.
• they are allowed to install new softwares.
• they never delete/uninstall anything from IMAGE1 i.e, anything that was already present.

After changes the environment is now IMAGE2.

How do I write a script/program to backup all the difference between *IMAGE2 and IMAGE1,* so that I can give user another computer with IMAGE1 and his backup data?

I would be willing to use windows restore if I could write a script to automate the process for user, that whenever I need to give him another computer, I ask him to run the script and backup data is created somewhere.

Answer 1

If i have understood correctly, then what you are asking is to do a FULL backup and then an incremental backup. This would work correctly with standard data files but not an entire image backup.

If you need to have multiple images with various software and tools, you should consider alternative approach such as Window Deployment Services that would allow you to 'capture' the entire image2 for example and still you would have your image1 to deploy any time if you wanted.

And if you don't wish to use WDS... take a look at http://blog.superuser.com/2012/03/19/a-guide-to-disk-imaging-backup-and-restore/

Oh and tick if it answers your question, ty! :)