I built a self-service kiosk where a tech selects a PC model from a dropdown, and a PowerShell script dynamically builds a Ghost task, injects the correct drivers, and starts a multicast session. That level of automation is rare in this price bracket. Broadcom (which acquired Symantec, which acquired Norton) now sells GSS. Licensing is per technician, not per endpoint. A single “Console User” license costs around $650/year (estimate). That’s not cheap for a small shop. However, for a school district or IT services company with 5 techs imaging thousands of machines, it’s a bargain compared to SCCM ($1,200+ per server).
You manage legacy hardware (BIOS), you need offline imaging without a network boot server, or you have a heterogeneous driver nightmare. ghost solution suite 3.3 ru11
I’ve been using GSS since version 2.5, and RU11 feels like the final, polished farewell to a classic architecture before Broadcom inevitably sunsets it. Here’s the long, unfiltered truth. Installation is refreshingly traditional. No cloud accounts, no Microsoft Store app, no 4GB RAM-hungry web console. You get a proper MSI that installs the Console, the Deployment Server, and the AIO (All-in-One) boot disk creator. I built a self-service kiosk where a tech
RU11 finally brought support to parity. In earlier 3.x versions, you had to jump through hoops to capture a GPT disk. Now, the “Ghost Boot Disk” wizard properly creates WinPE 10/11 media that boots UEFI and captures/restores GPT partitions without losing the EFI system partition. It works, but it’s not elegant. You still see raw sector counts in the logs – a comfort to veterans, a horror to newbies. Licensing is per technician, not per endpoint
You’re all-in on Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune/SCCM), you only deploy modern Linux, or you require a web-based dashboard.
The license server is still a separate install, and it’s temperamental. You must open ports 3115, 3116, and 1127 in your firewall. If you forget, GSS will silently fail to deploy. RU11 fixed some license checkout bugs from RU9, but it’s still not plug-and-play. Core Imaging Capabilities: Where It Shines GSS 3.3’s heart is still the .GHO (and .V2I) image format. In an age of WIM and VHDX, why use Ghost? Because it’s fast . A multicast deployment of a 20GB Windows 10 LTSC image to 50 identical Dell OptiPlexes ran at 2.4 GB/min over gigabit. That’s competitive with MDT and significantly faster than Clonezilla on heterogeneous hardware.
After installing RU11, immediately disable the “Auto-update boot disk” feature. It will try to rebuild WinPE every time you open the console. Do it manually once a quarter instead. Reviewed on: A Dell PowerEdge T640 running Windows Server 2022, managing ~800 Windows 10/11 clients across 12 subnets. Tested RU11 for 90 days in production.