How do people manage their large installs? Silent install scripts? I'm new to this but I think this issue is possibly the show stopper in terms of convincing management they don't need to be locked in to proprietory companies.

Take a look at AutoYaST: http://www.suse.de/~nashif/autoinstall/ Other options to consider are Norton Ghost (but your limited to using Ext2/3) or Clone In regard to CC3, North Manchester CLC went down that routewhen they were first set up, and apparently ripped out an active directory system because they couldnt get the policies to work, recently I've heared that that system too is in the process of being removed as well, so clearly isnt all that good or far too restrictive (imagine my surprize :) regards, Ben (currently spending half his week trying to keep a connect 2/win 98 system going a few months longer)