Microsoft has announced the general release of BDD 2007. This free download is a kit aimed to aid administrators and consultants in the deployment of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Microsoft says:
Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 is THE best practice set of comprehensive guidance and tools from Microsoft to optimally deploy Windows VistaT and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. BDD 2007 has undergone many changes to significantly ease the deployment of Windows Vista, including new out-of-the-box imaging technologies, XML-based migration scripts, new tools for image engineering (ImageX and System Image Manager), and new unattend XML format. Another huge breakthrough with Windows Vista is Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) independence and language neutrality; this means that organizations can get to a minimal number of standard images across multiple hardware types.
Some of the key information for using the Windwos PE solution to deploy Vista is scattered all over the documentation. I’ve some blog entries on my site with stpep-by-step’s on doing the basics.