Operating system deployment methods and systems

Various embodiments provide systems and methods that can be utilized to remotely manage operating system deployments. Various features can allow a system administrator to plan and schedule operating system or image deployment on various computers or machines throughout an organization. Planning and scheduling image deployment, in accordance with the various systems and methods described below, can take place in bandwidth-sensitive environments and are easily scalable. Various embodiments can provide an imaging process that seamlessly migrates data and/or state (e.g. machine/client/user data and state) to a newly-imaged operating system. In addition, at least some embodiments can provide end users with flexibility to alter the behavior of the image deployment within policies that are specified by the system administrator. Additional embodiments provide a rich mechanism by which status reports are generated and sent to the system administrator to assist them in managing the deployment. Further embodiments can conduct operating system deployment in-place, meaning that additional disk partitions are not required.